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ORIGINALLY  PUBLISHED 


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COL.  ORJVE  TO  GEN.  DUFF  GREEJV 


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BOSTON  : 

PUBLISHED  BY   PUTNAM  &  HUNT. 

1839. 


COLUMBUS,  NO.  I. 

A  writer  in  the  New  Hampshire  Patriot,  under  the  signature  of 
Jiiiii-Janus^  has  commenced  an  attack  against  a  portion  of  Gen.  Jack- 
son's friends,  in  Boston,  which  presents  some  claims  to  their  notice.  I 
do  not  hazard  a  conjecture  as  to  his  name.  The  matter  of  the  piece 
affords  sufficient  indications  that  it  is  a  Boston  production,  and  many 
circumstances  satisfy  me  beyond  a  doubt  that  it  may  be  deemed  the 
act  of  a  Boston  party.  The  piece  is  remarkable  for  a  boldness  of  as- 
sertion, for  a  rancorous  spirit  of  hostility,  and  for  a  recklessness  of 
truth,  which  have  usually  characterized  the  writers  in  the  Boston 
Statesman;  but  the  composition  evinces  a  greater  degree  of  taste  than 
has  usually  been  noticed  in  that  virulent  paper.  The  writer  is  not,, 
probably,  one  of  the  master  spirits  of  the  party.  People  who  have 
much  at  stake,  do  not  like  to  commit  themselves  too  openly  in  asser- 
tions which  cannot  be  maintained,  and  the  falsehood  of  which  must  re- 
coil, with  fearful  energy^  on  themselves.  They  prefer  to  pour  their 
slander  through  secret  channels,  and  to  leave  nothing  visible  of  the 
assassin  but  the  blow  that  he  strikes. 

I  confess  I  have  been  much  surprised  at  the  appearance  of  this  pa- 
per.    When  a  party,  by  the  use  of  secret  defamation,  has  accomplish- 
ed its  object,  and  obtained,  from  a  deceived  government,  trusts  of  such 
magnitude  as  must  have  surpassed  their  fondest  visions  of  hope, — such 
trusts  as  must  sometimes  make  them  doubt  whether,  indeed,  it  be  not 
the  illusions  of  a  happy  dream, — when,  apparently,  the  party  can  have 
nothing  more  to  hope  for,  while  they  have  every  thing  to  lose,  ther6 
appears  to  be  a  temerity  almost  approaching  to  madness,  in  bringing 
their  intrigues  into  public  discussion,  and  subjecting  their  false  asser-* 
tions  to  the  dread  talisman  of  truth.     There  must,  in  such  a  case,  be 
some  secret  danger  to  appal  them,  which  is  not  open  to  common  obser- 
vation.    The  government  whom  they  have  deceived  must,  from  some 
cause  or  other,  have    been  roused  to    suspicion — some  secret  thorn 
must,  in  the  haste,  have  been  covered  up  in  their  bed  of  roses  to  trou- 
ble their  repose — the  hidden  recess  of  their  retreat  must  have  been  in- 
vaded by  some  avenging  spirit  to  disturb  their  unhallowed  revels,  by 
pointing  iha  fins^er  from  the  wall.     Some  still    small  voice  must  hav6 
proclaimed  in  the  ear  of  slumbering  security,  that  the  triumphs  of  th^ 
1 


wicked  rest  on  a  treacherous  foundation,  which  the  slightest  shock  may 
cause  to  tumble  from  bencatii  them. 

The  attack  is  not  less  remarkable  from  the  quarter  whence  it  pro-, 
ceeds,  than  from  that  against  which  it  is  directed.  The  men  who  have 
received  every  thing  from  the  goverirment,  attack  those  of  its  friends 
who  have  received  nothing.  The  Statesman  party  is  not  satisfied  that 
the  Jackson  republican  party  has  been  overthrown.  Their  success- 
ful denunciation  to  the  president  does  not  satisfy  the  victors  in  the  very 
moment  of  their  triumph.  To  share  in  the  battle  without  partaking  of 
the  triumph — to  conquer  with  their  party,  and  to  be  worse  off  than  the 
conquered — to  have  their  success  rendered  less  beneficial  than  defeat, 
*  is  not  considered,  by  one  portion  of  the  Jackson  party,  sufficient  for 
another  portion.  These  vindictive  gentlemen  are  not  satisfied  that  we 
suffer,  nor  that  we  suffer  with  humility,  ^^e  have  bowed  to  the  rod  of 
affliction — the  blasts  of  adversity  have  passed  over  us,  and  we  have  not 
repined — the  '*  organs  of  the  government"  have  denounced  us,  and 
we  have  not  replied — calumny  has  closed  against  us  the  fountains  of 
power,  and  suspicion  has  rendered  deaf  to  our  voice  the  ear  of  author- 
ity, artd  yet  our  enemies  are  not  satisfied.  To  ruin  our  political  pros- 
pects is  not  enough^ — but  the  last  consolation  of  the  good  man,  that 
wliich  the  God  of  nature  has  not  placed  at  the  mercy  of  fortune,  the 
value  of  private  reputation,  is  to  be  assailed,  and  the  inmost  recess  to 
which  disappointed  virtue  can  retreat,  the  bosom  of  private  life,  is  to 
i3e  entered  and  violated. 

To  accomplish  this  object  the  pen  o^  Jinti-Jamts  is  employed.  The 
columns  of  a  distant  newspaper  arQ  selected  for  the  onset,  from  whence 
the  calumny  has  been  transferred  to  the  Boston  Statesman,  and  will 
probably  be  again  carried,  through  the  Washington  Telegraph,  to  every 
quarter  of  this  wide  extended  empire.  Whether  inclined,  or  other- 
wise, to  a  public  discussion,  the  alternative  is  not  left  us.  We  are 
forced  into  the  arena.  The  glove  of  the  challenger  is  haughtily 
thrown  down,  and  we  are  compelled  to  take  it  up.  We  must  meet  the 
slander,  or  acquiesce  in  the  justice  of  the  denunciation.  We  must  be 
content  with  infamy  as  well  as  ruin,  or  we  must  fight.  We  will  figUt. 
The  glove  of  the  challenger  is  fastened  to  our  helmet,  and  the  issue 
must  be  settled  by  the  sword.  The  contest  is  not  one  of  our  courting, 
but  we  engage  in  it  without  reluctance.  Tlie  calumny  which'has  been 
sent  forth  in  secret  shall  be  answered  openly.  The  government  shall 
fiear  two  parties  where^  beibre,  it  has  heard  but  one.  The  war,  like 
that  which  preceded  our  national  combat  with  England,  shall  no  long- 
er be  a  war  on  one  side.  The  eflx>rt  to  endure  shall  be  changed  to  one 
to  defend.  The  blow  shall  be  returned  as  well  as  warded  off.  And 
like  the  chivalry  of  ojd,  when  they  threw  away  the  scabbard,  we  call 
upon  the  God  of  armies  to  give  victory  and  honour  to  them  that  de- 
serve it.  «  ■  C0LU3IBUS. 

COLUMBUS,  NO.  II. 

The  individuals  whom  Anti-Janus  aims  at  are  too  plainly  under- 
stood to  be  left  in  doubt,  and  wc  add   nothing  to  the  certainty  by  re- 


moving  the  thin  veil  which  he  pretends  to  throw  over  his  portraits. — 
He  need  not  fear  that  we  shall  aflcct  to  misunderstand  him,  from  an 
apprehension  that  the  fidelity  of  the  portrait  will  be  admitted  when  its 
object  is  acknowledged.  The  sligfitcst  occurrence  in  the  history  of 
an  individual  will  sometimes  indicate  him  as  distinctly  as  his  name  ; 
and  let  the  outlines  of  the  portrait  be  shaped  as  they  may,  and  whether 
the  colouring  be  drawn  from  the  beams  of  Heaven's  own  arch,  or  from 
the  blackest  recesses  of  the  slanderous  bosom,  the  object  will  stand 
sufficiently  revealed. 

No  one,  therefore,  can  entertain  a  doubt  that  by  Col.  Christopher 
Crafty,  Anti-Janus  means  Col.  Orne;  and  it  is  equal] v  obvious  to 
whom  he  refers  by  the  parties  who  were  "to  furnish  a  sufficient  quan- 
tity of  good  society  federalism,"  and  '^  a  sprinkling  of  democracy  and 
the  balance  in  cash."  The  union  of  these  gentlemen  as  friends  of 
Gen.  Jackson,  and  who  established  a  newspaper  for  the  sole  purpose 
of  supporting  his  election, — their  movements  in  connexion  with  their 
party,  and  their  political  fate,  are  facts  of  general  notoriety,  and  in- 
applicable to  all  others. 

To  denounce  these  .gentlemen  and  their  political  friends,  and  the 
newspaper  which  defends  them,  is  the  object  of  Anti-Janus,  and  of  the 
friends  of  tlie  Statesman.  But  his  main  attention  is,  as  that  of  his 
party  has  heretofore  been,  bestowed  on  Col.  Orne.  The  reason  of 
this  distinction  will  sufficiently  appear  in  the  course  of  these  numbers. 
Our  present  object  is,  however,  only  to  notice  the  fact.  "VV  hen  men 
are  strong  in  their  union,  the  first  step  to  their  overthrow  is  to  effect 
their  division.  This  has  been  attempted  by  every  appeal  to  pride  and 
self-interest  which  the  ingenuity  of  intrigue  could  suggest,  but  has 
been  attempted  in  vain.  The  bond  between  men  of  honor  in  pur- 
suit of  an  honest  object,  will  baflle  the  deepest  cunning,  and  set  temp- 
tation at  defiance.  Duff'  Green,  with  all  the  means  that  his  supposed 
influence  and  want  of  honor  can  give  him,  has  been  as  unfortunate  in 
his  numerous  attempts,  as  have  his  worthy  coadjutors  of  the  States- 
man party.  Anti-Janus^  with  more  address  than  both,  will  share  their 
fate. 

Let  us  now  proceed  to  the  matter  of  his  accusation.  Col.  Orne's 
figure  "is  too  corpulent"  for  the  taste  of  Anit-Janus.  By  St.  George, 
we  could  almost  imagine  we  had  a  lady  for  our  adversary.  "  The  ex- 
pression of  his  eye  has  been  impaired"  by  a  chronic  inflammation  of 
some  twenty  years  standing.  What  a  pity  it  is  that  Col.  Orne  had  not 
consulted  Anti-Janus  as  his  apothecary.  Who  knows  but  that  between 
his  drugs  and  his  lead,  (pardon  me,  Anti-Janus,  I  believe  on  my  soul 
you  are  not  the  drug  and  paint  seller)  some  antidote  might  have  been 
found  to  allay  the  inflammation  and  preserve  the  lustre.  "  His  locks 
are  thinner  than  they  were  in  early  youth  ;  alas,  that  time  in  his  pro- 
gress, with  his  pitiless  scythe,  should  assaii  the  clustering  graces  of  the 
youthful  head.  Would  that  our  Anti-Janus  were  a  barber,  and  Col. 
Orne's  hair  had  been  subjected  to  his  skill  some  twenty  years  since — 
the  thin  locks  might  not  at  this  day  have  off'ended  the  delicate  taste  of 
our  adversary.     But  enough  of  this  trifling — there  is  graver  matter  be- 


hind.  According  to  Anti-Janus,  Col.  Orne  is  a  "  glutton"  ^nd  a 
"sensualist" — is  "  selfish,"  "  cunning,"  ''  treacherous,"  and  "  false." 
That  during  three  years  of  the  last  presidential  contest,  he  adopted  the 
non-committal  system,  and  could  nc*  decide  what  course  to  take.  He 
hesitated  while  Gov.  Clinton  lived,  lest  he  might  be  a  candidate:  and 
after  his  death,  turned  a  doubting  eye  towards  Mr.  Crawford.  He 
denied,  in  the  most  public  manner,  that  he  took  any  part  in  the  (presi- 
dential) contest,  while  at  the  same  time  he  privately  kept  up  an  active 
communication  with  the  friends  of  each  candidate,  professing,  in  the 
secrecy  of  confidential  correspondence,  to  be  friendly  to  each.  That 
he  was  a.fcncemany  until  the  election  of  Mr.  •Speaker  Stevenson  warn- 
ed him  to  jump  off,  when  he  attempted  to  steal  or  force  himself  into 
the  front  rank  of  those  who  had  fought  the  good  fight  of  Jackson  and 
reform,  but  his  base  and  selfish  conduct  caused  him  to  be  viewed  every 
where  with  coldness  and  distrust.  That  he  headed  a  new  party,  se- 
duced two  honest,  well  meaning,  (simple  souls!)  but  somewliat  disap- 
pointed politicians  to  join  him,  collected  the  unprincipled  of  all  parties, 
and  struck  for  his  object — but  failed.  That,  since  his  failure,  the  only 
passion  which  fin^s  entrance  to  his  bosom,  is  re,venge.  For  this  only 
he  lives,  moves  and  breathes,  this  employs  his  thoughts  by  day,  and  his 
dreams  by  night — to  this  he  devotes  his  perverted  talents,  his  fiendish  ' 
cunning,  and  his"  exceeding  falsehood.  He  abuses  Gen.  Jackson  in 
his  private  familiar  conversation  in  the  foulest  manner — abuses  his 
constitutional  advisers,  and  the  officers  he  has  appointed.  He  affects 
to  be  a  friend  to  Gen.  Jackson,  that  he  may  effect  the  mischief  he 
meditates.  He  ascribes  to  bribery,  the  support  which  disinterested 
presses  give  to  excellent  public  officers,  (Messrs.  Henshaw,  Greene 
and  Company!)  and,  to  the  same  cause,  the  undivided  approbation  (of 
them)  of  the  whole  community.  He  visits  the  friends  of  a  displaced 
clerk,  fans  the  embers  of  discontent,  and  excites  public  meetings  to 
denounce  the  representatives  of  the  government.  And,  finally,  ob- 
tains the  control  of  an  unprincipled  press,  by  the  means  of  some  in- 
strument he  has  made  his  dupe! 

This,  according  to  Anti-Janus,  is  the  catalogue  of  Col.  Orne's  of- 
fences, and  it  must  be  confessed,  that  his  transgressions,  if  it  be  just, 
exceed  all  the  sins  of  the  decalogue.  The  addition  of  a  few  more 
-would  hardly  change  the  color  of  the  picture,  for  perjury,  theft,  and 
murder  are  the  natural  fruits  of  such  concentrated  profligacy.  The 
greatest  enemy  of  Col.  Orne  must  admit,  that  charges  of  this  enormity 
should  be  made  only  by  one  who  was  prepared  to  support  them,  with 
proof,  when  it  was  called  for.  Asjiis  friend,  and  on  his  behalf,  I  call 
for  proof  He  denies  every  charge,  the  truth  of  every  averment,  and 
the  justice  of  every  imputation.  To  this  comprehensive  indictment  he 
pleads  not  guilty,  to  every  part  and  parcel  thereof,  and  throws  himself 
on  his  country  for  trial.  C^me  forward  then,  Mr.  Prosecutor  Anti- 
Janus,  and  produce  your  proof  You  have  made  the  charges  either  on 
the  information  of  others,  or  on  your  own  knowledge.  You  are  cither 
the  deceived,  or  the  deceiver.  If  others  have  informed  you,  name 
them,  and  call  upon  them  for  evidence.     If  they  are  unable  to  furnish 


it,  and  you  are  a  man  of  honor,  (for,  not  knowing  you,  I  will  not  pre- 
judge your  character,)  acknowledge  your  error,  and  make  atonement 
to  the  man  you  have  attempted  to  injure.  If  you  make  the  assertion  on 
your  own  knowledge,  come  forward  with  the  facts.  Draw  them  from 
what  source  you  may,  friends  or  enemies,  Irom  public  acts  or  confiden- 
tial communications.  You  are  at  liberty  to  use  any  information,  come 
from  what  quarter  it  may — for  Col.  Orne  exonerates  every  human  be- 
ing who  can  substantiate  your  statement,  or  any  part  of  it,  from  with- 
holding his  information,  under  whatever  circumstances  of  confidence 
it  might  have  been  obtained.  If  he  has  "  kept  up  an  active  commu- 
nication with  the  friends  of  each  candidate,  professing  in  the  sectecy  of 
confidential  correspondence  to  be  friendly  to  each,"  there  must  be 
some,  indignant  at  such  villany,  whose  confidence  must  have  been  de- 
stroyed by  his  exposed  duplicity,  and  who  can  have  no  m.otive  to  screen 
him.  He  removes  every  injunction  that  confidence  has  imposed,  and 
calls  upon  all,  nay  dares  all  who  holds  the  evidence  of  his  duplicity,  to 
bring  it  forward.  Bring  one  friend  of  any  other  candidate  to  confirm 
your  statement,  and  he  will  exonerate  you,  in  part,  tiom  malignant 
and  wilful  defamation.  If  you  shrink  from  his  reasonable  demand, 
withhold  all  proof,  vind  skulk  behind  your  anonymous  signature,  he  will 
hold  you,  in  common,  he  trusts,  with  the  rest  of  mankind,  as  a  false, 
malicious,  and  malignant  slanderer,  and  a  perjured,  corrupt,  and  prof- 
ligate knave.  columbus 

COLUMBUS  NO.  III. 

The  last  of  tjie  charges  made  by  Anti-Janus  is  the  first  in  the  order 
of  our  notice,  viz  :  that  since  the  local  appointments  here.  Col.  Orne 
has  been  actuated  by  a  spirit  of  revenge,  has  abused  Gen.  Jackson  and 
his  constitutional  advisers,  has  fanned  the  embers  of  discontent,  assail- 
ed his  ofiicers  through  the  public  press,  and  been  the  active  mover 
of  every  effort  in  opposition  to  their  conduct. 

There  is  not  one  Avord  of  truth  in  the  whole  of  this  comprehensive 
denunciation-' — it  is  gratuitous  and  unfounded  from  beginning  to  end. 
It  has  all  the  character  of  falsehood  which  Anti-Janus  imputes,  to  an- 
other, but  practices  himself,  by  way  of  illustration.  The  appointments 
made  by  the  president  here,  it  is  true,  surprised  and  astonished  the 
Jackson  republican  p.arty,  and  the  surprise  and  astonishment  have 
scarcely  diminished  to  this  hour.  His  best  friends  have  in  vain  taxed 
their  imaginations  to  comprehend  the  policy  by  which  he  has  beer  gov- 
erned, and  a  satisfactory  solution  of  the  subject  is  as  unattainable  now^ 
as  it  was  when  the  astonishing  appointments  were  mad*e.  It  has  been 
the  subject  of  frequent  and  earnest  conferences,  but  has  baffled  dvery 
attempt  at  a  satisfactory  elucidation.  The  course  proper  for  the  party 
to  pursue,  under  such  embarrassing  circumstances,  has  also  received 
the  full  measure  of  consideration.  Although  some  difference  of  opinion 
existed,  as  might  naturally  be  expected,  it  was  the  decision  of  the  ma- 
jority, that  the  party  should  keep  still,  and  suffer  the  consequences  of 


8 

• 

the  measures  to  unfold  themselves.  The  general  confidence  of  the 
Jackson  republican  party  in  the  rectitude  of  the  president's  intentions 
was  not  shaken,  but  a  deep  conviction  was  entertained  that  he  had 
been  deceived  by  artifices,  and  falsehoods,  which  would  not  fail,  in  the 
course  of  time,  to  become  manifest.  A  conviction  was  also  felt,  with 
equal  sinceritv,  that  the  president  was  not  a  man  to  suffer  deceit  to 
pass  with  impunity,  or  to  continue  trusts  in  hands  which  had  obtained 
them  by  the  grossest  artifices,  and  impositions.  For  this  change  in  the 
temper  of  the  administration  we  have  waited  v/ith  patience  and  resigna- 
tion. Our  information  from  Washington,  froi:rt  the  most  respectable 
sources,  assured  us  that  the  president  was  by  no  means  pleased  with 
the  state  of  things  in  Boston,  or  satisfied  that  his  appointments  were  of 
the  character  he  had  been  led  to  suppose  : — The  party  who  had  pressed 
these  appointments  upon  him  he  had  detected  in  a  foul  conspiracy  to 
slander  the  character  of  almost  the  only  man,  Gen.  Boyd,  whose  ap- 
pointment answered  the  expectations  of  our  citizens.  This  base  and 
proflifrate  conspiracy  against  a  maQ  who  had  deserved  sp  much  from 
his  country,  made  a  deep  impression  on  the  mind  of  the  president,  and 
awakened  a  suspicion  of  the  true  character  of  the  Statesman  party. 
The  first  effect  was  to  stop  any  further  appointments  on  their  recom- 
mendation, and,  subsequently,  an  order  to  the  collector  to  make  no 
more  removals  without  first  receiving  the  sanction  of  the  treasury  de- 
•partment.  The  movements  of  the  Boston  merchants,  in  regard  to  the 
shameful  proscriptions  of  the  Customhouse,  were  the  unbiassed  results 
of  the  deep  disgust  felt  by  business  men  who  regarded  alone  the  inter- 
ests of  the  community,  uninfluenced  by,  and  indifferent  to  political  con- 
siderations. So  far  from  being  instigated  by  Col.-  Orne,  tl>at  gentle- 
man was  totally  uninformed  that  a  meeting  vv^as  contemplated,  until  the 
evenincr  it  occurred,  when  it  was  incidentally  mentioned  to  him  by  a 
gentleman  who  intended  to  be  present.  Col.  Orne  had  no  more  agen- 
cy in  getting  it  up^  than  Mr.  Henshaw,  against  whose  objectionable 
conduct  it  was  convened  to  remonstrate.  His  decided  disinclination  to 
be  a  party  to  such  a  movement,  was  too  well  known,  even  to  admit  of 
the  subject  being  suggested  to  him.  Col.  Orne  was  equally  a  stranger 
to  the  discussions  which  have  from  time  to  time  appeared  in  the  Bulle- 
tin, upon  these  subjects.  The  course  the  party  had  adopted,  preclud- 
ed any  interference  on  their  part,  and  the  discussions  have  been  the  un- 
biased acts  of  its  senior  editor,  whose  forbearance  had  been  taxed  to 
its  utmost  limits,  by  the  disgraceful  transactioni  he  was  compelled  to 
witness. 

That  the  principal  members  of  the  Jackson  republican  party  have 
felt  tills  state  of  things  with  deep  and  undissemblcd  regret  and  mortifi- 
catioi,  it  would  be  useless  to  deny.  Let  a  brief  consideration  of  the 
circumstances  decide,  whether  or  not  this  state  of  feeling  was  justifia- 
ble. The  election  of  Gen.  Jackson  was  advocated  by  a  small,  but  spir- 
ited portion  of  our  citizens,  comprising  members  of  the  two  ancient 
great  political  parties.  The  dis})Osition  of  Gciv  Jackson  to  treat  all 
his  political  friends  as  standing  on  the  same  party  ground,  whatever 
might  have  been  the  former  differences  among  them,  had  been  so  often 


9 

proclaimed,  and  has  been  since  so  obviously  the  princfple  of  his  public 
measures,  that  his  policy,  in  this  rcsiifjct,  has  never  been  the  subject 
of  a  moment's   distrust  or  uncertainty.     For  reasons  which  will  be 
made  manifest  in  the  course  of  this  discussion,  the  Statesman  party 
professed  to   reject  from  the  Jackson  cause  all  who  had  not  been  de- 
mocrats of  th6  old  school.     T^ie  Jackson  republican  party  made  it  the 
basis  of  their  measures,  that  all  the  advocates  of  Gen.  Jackson  who 
supported  the  principles  of  the  Jefferson  school,  let  their  party  appel- 
lations be  what  they  might,  should  act  together,  in  good  faith  and  har- 
monious co-operation.      That  the  president  should  give  his  exclusive 
confidence  to  the  party  in    opposition   to   the    principle   so   frequently 
proclaimed  as  the  basis,  and  made  the  guide  of  the  measures  of  his  ad- 
ministration, was  not  considered  within  the  bounds  of  cioral  possibility. 
That  federalists  who  had  honestly  joined  the  great  national  republican 
party,  and  been  for  many   years,  the  sincere  and  ardent  advocates  of 
Gen.  Jackson's  election, — who  had  devoted  their  talents,  and  expend- 
ed their  monkey,  in  his  cause, — had  suffered  the  proscriptions  and  per- 
secutions of  their  former  political  associates,  and  staked  all  their  politi- 
cal hopes  and  prospects   on  this  great  national   question, — should,  or. 
the  occurrence  of  Gen.  Jackson's  elevation,   be   denounced  and  pro- 
scribed,— be   deprived  of  all  favor  and  shut  out  from  all  confidence, — 
be  the  victims  at  once  of  their  friends  and  their  opponents,  and  reap,  in 
victory,  worse  consequences  than  in  defeat, — was  a  result  winch  never, 
for  one  moment,  disturbed  their  tranquility  during  the  animated  strug- 
gle.    That  this  is,   however,  their  present  position  in  this  common- 
wealth, and  also  that  of  the   democrats  who   acted  with  them  in  the 
common  cause,  is  a  fact  of  indisputable  notoriety.     That  the  president 
could  have  intended  to  place  them  in  this  position,  is  a  belief  that  can 
gain  no  efltrance  into  an  honest  bosom,   which  professes  a  particle  of 
confidence  in  the  president's  political  integrity.     The  Jackson  repub- 
lican party  do  not  beiiete  it,  do  not  distrust  it,  do  not  imagine  it.     The 
consciousness  of  their  own  existence   is  scarcely  stronger  than  their 
deep  conviction,  that  the   true  state  of  things  was  not  known  to  the 
president  when  his  appointments  were  made,  and  is  not  now  beheld  by 
him  with  any  degree  of  satisfaction.     By  what  means  he  has  been  de- 
ceived, let  the  infamous  Duff  Green,  and   Isaac  Hill,  and  the  States- 
man  party   declare.     The  '^  open  day  and  secret  night  transactions''^  oi 
these  profligate  men,  would,  could  They  be  made  manifest,  develope  the 
hidden  mystery  of  these  perplexing 'events. 

But  the  apparent  hostility  of  this  state  of  things,  to  the  obvious  poli- 
cy of  the  present  administration,  and  to  the  avowed  and  often  repeated 
principles  of  the  president,  is  not  the  only  cause  of  deep  mortification 
to  the  Jackson  republican  party.  • 

At  the  period  of  Gen.  Jackson's  accession,  the  prospect  of  his  po- 
litical friends,  in  this  commonwealth,  was  full  of  consolation,  and  prom- 
ise, and  hope.  A  large  proportion  of  our  citizens  were  friends  of  the 
late  administration,  not  from  any  attachment  to  Mr.  Adams,  but  from  a 
patriotic  impulse  to  support,  with  a  just  degree  of  confidence,  the  con- 
stituted authorities  of  this  nation.     Of  the  tv/o  great  political  parties, 


10 

the  mass  of  ther  democrats  alone  were  the  devoted  partizans  of  Mr. 
Adams — it  was  they  who  placed  him  in  nomination,  wluogaye  him  their 
organized  party  support,  who  prpclaimed  him  as  their  party  candidate, 
and  who  refused,  to  federahsts,  any  participation  in  their  measures. 
He  was  emphatically  the  candidate  of  the  democratic  party  of  this  com- 
monwealth, and  as  they  were  his  supporters  from  preference,  they 
would,  of  course,  from  the  least  sentiment  of  delicacy  and  honor,  be  the 
last  to  abandon  his  sinking  cause.  The  federal  party,  on  the  contrary, 
as  a  body,  might  rather  be  considered  as  acquiescing  in  Mr.  Adams' 
administration,  than  as  his  partizans.  His  recent  denunciation  of  them 
as  traitors  to  his  country,  had  still  more  alienated  their  sentiments  from 
him,  and  prepared  them  for  the  support  of  Gen.  Jackson's  administra- 
tion. Our  population,  too,  embraced  a  vast  proportion  of  young  men, 
who  had  never  been  classed  in  either  of  the  great  political  parties. 
They  had  come  of  age  since  the  federal  party  had  ceased  its  active 
efforts,  and  were  required  to  overcome  no  prejudices,  nor  encounter 
any  odium  of  inconsistency,  in  becoming  members  of  the^ackson  na- 
tional republican  party.  At  the  time  of  Gen.  Jackson's  election  they 
v/ere  prepared  to  meet  him  with  an  honest  confidence,  and  afford  to  his 
measures  and  his  friends  a  disinterested  support. 

The  republican  party,  too,  strongly  attached  as  they  were  to  Mr. 
Adams,  necessarily  lost  the  bond  of  their  union  in  his  fall,  and,  as  they 
were  never  'partizans  of  Mr.  Clay,  the  prospect  of  their  fielding,  thougj^ 
a  more  protracted,  yet  a  decided  support  of  the  new  administration, 
was  flattering  in  the  extreme.  In  truth,  the  political  field  was  open, 
and  almost  abandoned,  to  the  Jackson  republican  party.  Their  avow- 
ed principles,  based  on  the  deepest  foundation  of  the  Jefferson  school, 
their  rejection  of  former  senseless  party  prejudices,  their  liberal  dis- 
position to  make  common  cause  with  Jackson  men,  who  c<5uld.  unite 
with  them  on  principle — prepared  the  way  for  their  immediate,  and 
scarcely  disputed  ascendency  in  this  commonw?!alth.  A  large  majori- 
ty of  the  netv^spapers  iif  Boston,  avowed  their  readiness  to  act  in  har- 
mony with  our  party,  and  there  was  not  cause  for  a  doubt,  that  in  a 
few  months,  Massachusetts  would  have  been  added  to  the  states  which 
supported  the  present  administration.  The  Clay  party,  now  so  tri- 
umphant aiid  overwhelming  in  this  commonwealth,  scarcely  manifest- 
ed a  consciousness  of  existence,  and^vere  debatmg  whether  they  should 
not  surrender  the  ground,  without  -a  struggle.  I  have  not  a  doubt,  but 
for  a  state  of  things  I  shall  presently  refei^to,  the  first  local  election 
after  the  elevation  of  Gen.  Jackson,  would  have  shown  the  Jackson 
republican  party  in  this  city,  at  least  fifteen  hundred  strong,  at  the 
polls. 

The  first*  check  to  these  prosperous  anticipations  was- the  declara- 
tion of  Duff  Green,  soon  after  the  result  of  the  election  was  under- 
stood, that  Gen.  Jackson  would  receive  no  support  but  from  the  de- 
mocrats of  IMassachusctts,  and  would  compel  all  others  to  go  into  an 
opposition.  Most  people,  however,  felt  a  perfect  contempt  for  the  up- 
start profligacy  of  this  printer,  and  treated  his  threats  with  derision — 
but.  many,  not  knowing  the  sentimentsof  the  great  Icadcrsof  the  Jack- 


11 

son  party,  waited  for  a  further  development  before*they  would  be  com- 
mitted. '  The  next  act  that^startled  apprehension,  was  the  prompt  ap- 
pointment of  Andrew  Dunlap  to  be  district  attorney — a  man  singularly 
obnoxious  to  the  great  body  of  our  citizens,  and  whose  appointment 
was  a  heavy  blow  to  the  prospects  of  any  Jackson  party  in  this  com- 
monweakh.     Wiid-tongued  rumor,  also,  soon   followed  with  its  whis- 
pers of  Mr.  Green's  designation  for  the  Boston  Post-office,  and  a  dark 
heavy  cloud  settled  on  the  sunny    prospects  of  the  Jackson  cause. 
The  policy  proclaimed  by  Duff  Green,  for  the  first  time  began  to  gain 
entrance  into  the  bosoms  of  considerate  men  ;  and  a  determination 
not  to  recognise  in  its  party,  any  but  the  exclusive  democrats  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, was  apprehended  to  be  the   policy   of  this  administration. 
The  incredibility  of  such  a  course  alone  prevented  the  great  body  of 
our  people  from  giving  it  belief;  when,  finally,  the   appointment  of 
Mr.  Henshaw  to  the  coUectorship,  a   seleciion  scarcely  more  fortu- 
nate, in  any  respect,  than  the  others,  was  the  overwhelming  stroke  to 
the  Jackson  party.     The  whole  patronage  of  the  administration  then, 
conferred  on  party  grounds,  was  given  to  the  party  who  acknowledged 
Duff  Green  for  their  idol,  and   made  the  proscription  of  the  federal 
friends  of  Gen.  Jackson,  the  basis  of  their  party  organization.     To 
the  important  offices  of  the  district  attorney   and  the  post-office,  was 
now  added,  not  only  the  coUectorship  of  Boston,  but  the  whole  patron- 
age of  the  custom-house— a  patronage  which  bestows  an  influence  on 
the  collector,  scarcely  inferior  to  that  which  the  president  of  the  U. 
States,  from  all  other  sources,  can  command  in  this  commonweaUh. 
Not  only  were  the  Jackson  republican  party  excluded  from  all  trusts, 
but  their  sentiment^  and  views,  in  regard  to  removals  and  appointments, 
%vere  never  consulted.     But  the   apparent  policy  to  be  persued  in  re- 
gard to  them  was  not  confined  to  neglect.     Duff"  Green  openly  avowed, 
that  not  only  should  they  be  excluded  from  appointments,  but  that  it 
should  be  reason  enough  to  deprive  any  incumbent  of  his  office,  that 
he  acted,  in  support  of  G^n.   Jackson,   as  a  member  of  the  Jackson 
republican  party.     Accordingly,  one    of  the  earliest  acts  was  the  re- 
moval of  William  Little— a  man  much  beloved,  and  popular  with  our 
citizens — a  relic  of  the  revolutionary  army — a  Jackson  man,. and  the 
head  of  the  most  decided  Jackson  family  in  New-England— in  the 
midst  of  his  usefulness,  and  his  health.     He  was  removed  even  with 
marks  of  indignity,— as  the  civility  of  a  notice  to  him  was  not  regard- 
ed, and  he  went  tb  his  office  and  found  another  commissioned  to  dis- 
charge its  duties.     He  was  related  hy  marriage  to    Col.  Orne.     W  hile 
his  associate,  one  of  the  most  violent  Adams  men  in  our  community, 
and  certainly,  I  hazard  nothing  in  saying,  one  who  is  little  beloved,  as 
an  officer,  by  the  great  body  of  our  merchants,  is  retained  to  this  hour. 
Col.   Arthur  Lithgow,  another  relic  of  the  revolution,  was  also  dis- 
placed, for  he  had  been   a  member  of  the  Jackson  republicaH  party. 
And  up  to  this  moment,  not  a  single  member  of  that  party  has  been 
placed  in  any  office,  on  party  grounds— Gen.  Boyd,  the  only  success- 
ful candidate,  having  claims,  altogether,  of  a  public  character. 
2 


12 

Notwithstanding  .the  disposition  of  the  communitj  to  meet  the  pres' 
ident  "  more  than  half  waif — and  in  spite  <^  all  the  influence  of  patron- 
ace  and  office,  the  whole  Jackson  party  is  at  this  time,  less  numer- 
ous than  it  was  when  the  contest  was  doubtful.  Although  nearly  nine 
hundred  votes  were  cast  for  the  Jackson  electoral  ticket,  when  the 
candidates  were  justly  exceptionable,  and  exceedingly  unpopular,  our 
best  informed  friends  despair  of  being  able  to  collect  round  the  Jackson 
standard  in  this  city,  five  hundred  votes.  "  Hhic  illod  lachrymxy 
This  is  cause  enough,  if  an  honorable  Jackson  man  were  to  have  no 
rest  by  day,  nor  peace  by  night — why  his  waking  visions,  and  slum- 
berino- dreams,  should  be  full  of  trouble  and  disquiet.  When  we  think 
on  what  we  were  and  might  have  been,  and  reflect  on  what  we  are,  it 
is  enough  to  sicken  the  heart,  and  palsy  the  energies  of  the  mind,  and 
to  cause  every  friend  among  us  of  the  present  administration  to  stain 
the  cheeks  of  manhood  with  a  woman's  tear,  and  bow  the  head  of  hu- 
mility in  sack-cloth  and  ashes.  This  it  is  that  has  exemplified  a  po- 
litical problem  which  was  once  thought  a  moral  impossibility — it  has 
forced  a  revolution  to  go  backwards,  and  brought  forward  a  candidate 
to  contend  for  the  presidency  who  fell  from  it  when  in  power.  This  is 
the  reason  why  Henry  Clay  is  rising  triumphantly  in  this  common- 
wealth, and,  in  a  nautical  phrase,  looming  large  in  the  contest,  when, 
recently  he  was  politically  prostrate  and  overthrown — and  why  he  is 
threatening  to  be  a  formidable  competitor  for  the  presidency,  who  was 
recently  unable  to  strengthen  the  coalition  by  the  addition  of  a  single 
vote.  Is  Anti-Janus  hunting  for  secret  enemies  of  the  administration  ? 
Let  him  open  his  eyes  and  behold  here,  among  us,  in  broad  day,  those 
who  bask  in  the  sunshine  of  favor,  and  yet  carry  ruin  and  destruction 
to  the  cause  they  hail  under.  The  enemy  is  in  the' citadel — who  then 
can  wonder  ^hat  the  fortress  is  in  ruins  }  columbus. 

COLUMBUS,  NO.  IV. 

I  have  said  that  the  policy,  which  governed  the  president  in  his  Bos- 
ton appointments,  was  incomprehensible  at  the  time,  and  defies  every 
effort  at  elucidation  now  ;  and  yet  I  am  not  unaware  that  motives  have 
been  assigned  which  may  appear  to  some  sufficient  to  explain  it.  But 
little  examination  H  requisite  to  show  that  the  mystery  is  not  the  less 
dark  from  any  rays  they  can  shed  upon  it.  There  are  only  two  which 
strike  with  the  least  plausibility,  and  them   I  shall  proceed  to  notice. 

The  Jackson  contest,  it  was  said,  was  a  democratic  contest,  and  the 
policy  of  this  administration  was  to  retrace  the  lines  of  division  between 
the  old  parties  which  had  been  obscured,  and  almost  effiiced,  by  the 
perplexed  character  of  the  recent  politioal  contests.  But  the  asssertion 
is  as  destitute  of  fact,  as  the  policy  is  of  probability  or  justice.  Feder- 
alists, as  such,  were  no  parties  to  the  contest,  and  were  contending 
with  equal  vehemence,  and  with  no  great  disparity  of  numbers,  in  the 
opposing  ranks.  In  some  quarters  Adams  was  as  incontestibly  the 
candidate  of  the  republican  party,  as  Jackson  was  in  others  ;  and  fed- 


13 

eralistg  advocated  the  cause  of  the  one^  in  one  section  of  the  union 
with  the  same  earnestness  they  were  opposing  it  in  another.     But  the 
Statesman  party,  it  is  said,  not  only  pressed  this  policy  on  the  govern- 
ment, and  reinforced  it  by  the  northern  Jackson  democratic  delegation 
but  made  magnificent  pledges  of  the  effect  it  would   produce  on  this 
commonwealth.     Massachusetts  democrats  were  to  go  in  a  body  to  the 
feet  of  the  President,  and  the  administration   flag   triumphantly  to  float 
over  the  polftical  edifices  of  this  ancient  metropolis.     Under  such  lead- 
ers as  Messrs.  Henshaw,  Dunlap,  Greene,  et  id  omne  genus,    the  state 
was  to  be  brought  into  the  true  fold.     By  their  appointment,'  the  great 
strong  hold  of  Adams  was  to  be  wrested  from  Clay,  and  the  head  of  the 
opposition  be  crushed,  before  it  should  have    time  to  g>ather  itself  up 
from  its  prostrate  position.     Four  of  the  remaining  five    jV.  E.   states 
would  follow  tlje   example,  from  their  democratic  sympathies,  while  a 
doubtful  or  federal  flag,  in  this  state,  would  either  prevent  their  acces- 
sion, or  destroy  their  party  ascendency.     The  importance  of  such  re- 
sults, it  is  supposed,  induced  the  administration  to  swerve  a  little  from 
their  own  principles,  and  allow  the  sacrifice  of  a  few  of  their  friends  for 
an  object  of  such  general  interest. 

The  absurdity  of  the  idea  that  any  respectable  party  would  rally  un- 
der such  men,  was  no  answer  to  the  argument  ;  because  the  govern- 
ment might  be  deceived  as  to  their  character,  and  the  estimation  in 
which  they  were  holden.  Nor  was  the  opposite  fact,  that  under  the 
banner  of  the  Jackson  republican  party  alone,  any  respectable  portion 
of  our  people  would  rally,  one  of  greater  difficulty.  The  same  errone- 
ous impression  which  attributed  much  weight  to  the  Statesman  party, 
might  attribute  little  to  ours. 

But  the  true   objection  is  of  a  graver  character,    and  explodes  the 
absurd  hypothesis  to  air.      The  policy  would  have  been  unprincipled 
and  dishonorable,  and  every  sentiment  of  Gen.  Jackson's  heart  would 
have  risen  up  against  it  in  rebellion.     What,  sell  his  friends  to   pur- 
chase his  enemies  !  Abandon  these  who  had  fought  for  him,  to  invite  to 
his  arms  those  by  whom  he  had  been  opposed  and  denounced  !    Punish 
the  soldiers  who  had  gained  the  battle,  to   reward  those  who  had  dis- 
puted it  !  Talk  of  his  policy  at   the  expense  of  his   principles— of  his 
private  advantage  in  opposition  to  his  public  duties — of  interest  against 
honor  ?    He  would  not  have  sacrificed  a  man  to  have    purchased  his 
enemy's  camp.     The  fidelity  of  a  leader  to  his  party  is  sheltered  in  the 
inmost  recess  of  his  heart,  and  before  it  can  be  violated  in  an   honora-' 
ble  bosom,  the  heart  must  be  bared  to  its  last  artery.     The  most  preju- 
diced enemy  he  has,  3Ir.  Clay   himself,  in  the   gall  of  his  disappoint- 
ment, would  not  dei^  to  Gen.  Jackson  the  lofty  aspirations  of  private 
honor.     There  is  no  policy  however   specious,  there  is  no  advantage 
however  substantial,  there  is  no  consequence  however  appalling,  thaf 
could  win,  or  force  him,  to  violate  the  fidelity  of  an  honorable  leader 
towards  his  political  friends.     If  I  could   suspect  one  moment  that  the 
perfidy  of  so  black  a  heart  had  fluttered  in  a  single  pulsation  of  his  ar- 
teries, I  would  tear  his  badge  from  my  dishonored  head,  and  trample  it 
in  the  dust.     I  do  not  doubt  that  such  specious  illusions  were  spread 


14 

out,  by  this  degraded  party,  to  influence  politicians  of  a  different  sort. 
They  might  captivate  the  fancy  of  a  Duff  Green,  for  they  are  on  a 
level  with  his  principles  and  his  understanding.  They  might  suit  the 
politics  of  men  around  the  president, — for  jackalls  ever  follow  in  the 
wake  of  the  lion,  until  they  expose  themselves  to  the  noble  animal,  and 
are  trodden  down  in  his  path — men  whose  morality  knows  no  standard 
but  interest,  nor  any  merit  but  success.  They  might  have  seduced 
such  men  to  second  the  ambitious  objects  of  our  demagogues,  and  to 
urge  their  appointment  on  grounds,  to  us  indeed  inscrutable,  but  more 
consistent  with  notions  of  elevated  honor.  But  that  they  influenced 
the  chief  himself — nay,  that  there  is  a  man  in  the  country  who  dared  to 
insult  the  head^of  this  nation  with  the  suggestion  of  such  a  policy,  can 
only  be  credited  when  the  republic  is  despaired  of  Whatever  did  in- 
fluence the  president  to  so  inexplicable  a  course,  it  was  not  any  policy 
to  purchase  his  enemies  by  the  sacrifice  of  his  friends. 

And  those  who,  acting  from  motives  so  ineffably  execrable,  have 
calculated  to  buy  over  the  Adams  democrats  of  Massachusetts,  by 
selling  the  Jackson  republican  party  here,  or  win  them,  by  the  reward  of 
such  leaders,  have  equally  mistaken  the  character  of  our  people,  and 
"the  importance  of  their  services — If  the  democratic  statesof  New  Eng- 
land are  never  brought  within  the  fold  until  the  democracy  of  Massa- 
chusetts hails  under  the  Statesman  banner,  the  hair  that  is  not  yet 
sprouted  shall  be  first  bleached,  like  snow,  in  the  winters  of  age. 

The  second  ground,  to  which  the  policy  of  the  government  has  been 
attributed,  is  one  of  a  still  more  delicate  character.     Before  a  success- 
ful candidate  fairly  enters  on  the  duties  of  his  oflice,  the   agitated  and 
unquiet  passions  of  the  age,   speculate  on   his  successor. — The  devo- 
tion of  Duff  Green  to  the  elevation  of  Mr.  Calhoun  is  not  only  notori- 
ous but  undissembled.     Being  viewed,  by  the  influence  of  unhappy  cir- 
cumstances, as  the  organ  of  the  present   administration,  the  inclination- 
of  his  views  is  supposed  to  indicate   that  of  the   cabinet.     The  States- 
man leaders,  if  such  a  term  can  be  applicable  to  the  front  files  of  Such 
a  rabble,  no  doubt,  pledged  their  fidelity  to  Mr.  Calhoun — and  such  is 
their  dependance  on,  and  obligation  to  Duff  Green,  that  their  ready  ac- 
quiescence in  his  views,  be  they  what  they  may,  and  be  they  for  whom 
they  may,  is  far  from  problematical.     The  certainty   of  obtaining  this 
party,  if  their  sacred  pledge  could  make  it  certain,  determined  the  poli- 
cy of  the  Telegraph  ;  while  the  different  materials  of  which  the  Jack- 
son republican  party  was  composed,  and  the   independent   characters 
of  the  men  around  whom  that  party  rallied,  satisfied  the  intriguing  prin- 
ter, that  they   could  neither  be  bought  nor  driven,  to  a  premature  de- 
cision on  the  prospective  contest.     Duff  Green  could  make  no  calcula- 
tions on  a  party  which,  he  had    well    ascertained,    rejected    him  as  a 
leader.     If  he  could  not  make  f/ion  follow,  he  could  strengthen  those 
who  did  ;  and  this,  and  another  reason  of  a  more  private  and  interested 
character,  which  I  shall  hereafter  refer  to,  induced  him  to  embrace  the 
Statesman  party,  and  denounce  ours.     In  his  policy  he  had,  beyond  a 
doubt,  many  coadjutors  on  the  spot.     It  has  governed  those  who  have 
exercised,  and  might  have  claims  to  exercise,  much  influence  with  the 


15 

president.  The  friendly  disposition  towards  the  Statesman  party,  mani- 
fested by  so  many,  at  the  seat  of  government,  had  this  for  its  cause. 
And  yet  the  fact  presents  a  strange  anomaly. 

One  of  the  causes  which  influenced  a  portion  of  the  opposition  to  Mr. 
Adams  in  this  quarter,  was,  undoubtedly,  a  question  of  national  inter- 
est connected  with  our  manufactures.  A  part  of  the  mercantile  com- 
munity apprehended  danger  to  their  commerce  from  the  system  of 
domestic  protection,  as  it  was  actually  modified.  They  supported  the 
Jackson  cause  from  their  views  of  national  interest.  Being  deeply  en- 
gaged in  commercial  pursuits,  they  were  necessarily  men  of  influence 
and  standing  in  our  community.  The  Statesman  party  was  not  re- 
spectable enough  to  permit  the  possibility  of  a  co-operation  with  thein 
by  men  of  such  a  standing.  Our  merchants,  in  general,  have  either 
no  party  character,  or  have  been  federahsts.  Such  men  the  Statesman 
denounces  Self  respect  would  permit,  on  their  part,  a  connexion  only 
with  the  Jackson  republicans.  They  would  not  enlist  as  the  followers 
of  any  man  in  a  prospective  contest,  but  their  bias  must  have  insensi- 
bly been  towards  the  policy  of  a  southern  candidate.  That  the  partizan 
printer  of  such  a  candidate  should  denounce  these  men,  excites  a  deep- 
er admiration  of  his  boldness  than  of  his  wisdom. 

Many  have  suspected. Mr.  Calhoun  as  the  abettor  of  the  hostility 
towards  the  Jackson  republicans.  I  cannot  agree  with  them.  That 
his  friends  have  acted  so  with  a  view  to  his  benefit  is  incontestible,  but 
it  would  require  an  effort  to  believe  that  they  were  sanctioned  by  him. 
He  is  not  the  first  man  who  has  been  injured  by  the  injudicious  zeal  of 
his  friends. 

But  this  throws  no  light  upon  the  poHcy  of  the  president.  He  is  not 
the  partizan  of  Mr.  Calhoun.  Let  his  opinions  of  Mr.  Calhoun's  quali- 
fications and  claims  be  what  they  may,  the  wish  to  influence  a  future 
choice  of  president,  has  never  dictated  his  slightest  measure.  On  this 
subject  he  is  as  inflexible  as  he  is  honest.  And  whatever  influence  the 
injudicious  friends  of  Mr.  Calhoun  may  have  exerted  for  his  benefit,  the 
advancement  of  his  cause  has  not  been  the  motive  they  have  holden 
out  to  the  president.  Whenever  his  policy  in  sacrificing  us  is  brought 
to  light,  be  it  what  it  may,  it  was  not  the  advancement  of  Mr.  Cal- 
houn's election.  We  speak  upon  this  subject  with  confidence,  and  we 
speak  with  authority.  The  Jackson  republican  party  may  have  been 
sacrificed  by  the  friends  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  with  a  view  to  advance  his 
cause,  and  that  too,  we  believe  on  our  souls,  without  his  sanction  or 
desire  ;  but  the  fact  throws  no  light  on  the  policy  of  the  executive.  It 
is  as  inscrutable  as  it  is  surprising.  It  sets  reasoning  at  defiance.  Im- 
agination cannot  grasp  it.  The  astonishment  it  excited  when  it  was 
first  promulgated,  continues  still,  and  neither  reason,  nor  sentiment, 
nor  party  fidelity,  nor  the  services  of  the  past,  nor  the  interests  of  the 
future,  throw  a  ray  of  light  on  the  darkness  of  its  mysteries. 

COLUMBUS. 


16 


COLUMBUS,  NO.  y. 

The^charo-e  of  a  ^^fenceman,^^  made  by  Anti- Janus  against  Col. 
Orne,  is  the  most  remarkable  that  unblushing  impudence,  perhaps, 
ever  dared  to  hazard  in  the  face  of  an  intelligent  community.  It  is  almost 
impossible  to  treat  it  with  gravity.  There  is  not  a  man  from  Maine 
to  the  Mississippi — from  the  Atlantic  frontier  to  the  remotest  point  in 
our  western  forests  to  which  the  pioneers  of  civilization  have  advan- 
ced, who  from  the  commencement  of  the  contest  for  the  choice  of  a 
successor  to  Mr.  3Ionroe,  up  to  the  present  hour,  has  been  more  free 
frbm  any  thing  equivocal  in  his  politics,  or  is  less  obnoxious  to  the  ap- 
pellation of  a  fenceman.  I  make  this  assertion  in  the  strongest  possi- 
ble sense  in  which  it  can  be  understood.  He  is  the  last  man  in  the 
community  against  whom  such  a  charge  has  any  color  of  foundation, 
and  it  is  the  last  of  all  charges  which  should  be  made  against  him. 

By  a  fenceman  I  understand  one  whose  leading  object  it  is  to  be 
with  the  successful  party,  and  who  decides  to  join  it,  only  after  its  suc- 
cess, at  least  to  himself,  is  sufficiently  indicated.  One  who  "  hur- 
ras "  most  vehemently  for  the  triumph,  but  who  is  especially  careful  to 
be  away  from  the  danger.  A  self-interested  man  who  aims  to  share 
in  the  fruits  of  victory,  but  withholds  his  aid  from  the  struggle. — In 
this  section  of  the  country,  where  the  conduct  of  political  men  is  un- 
der the  public  observation,  the  notorious  falshood  of  this  charge  ren- 
ders its  denial  apparently  an  act  of  supererogation.  There  is  not  a 
man  who  makes  such  a  charge  but  a  knave,  nor  one  who  believes  it 
but  a  dupe.  The  intriguing  leader  of  the*Statesman  party,  w^ho  them- 
selves so  well  know  Its  absolute  falsity,  chuckle  in  wonder  that  the 
effrontery  of  unblushing  assertion  can  impose  so  successfully  on  the 
ignorance  of  remote  conductors  of  the  press,  as  to  procure  it  some 
currency. 

A  slio^ht  recurrence  to  the  history  of  the  parties  formed  in  this  quar- 
ter; in  relation  to  the  controversy  for  president,  is  alone  requisite  to 
show  the  wanton  malice  of  its   character 

When  the  election  of  a  successor  to  Mr.  Monroe  was  first  in  agita- 
tion, the  great  mass  of  the  voters  in  this  commonwealth  indicated  a 
preference  of  Mr.  Adams,  while  the  residue,  a  comparatively  small 
minority,  prefered  Mr.  Crawford.  The  present  Jackson  party  is 
composed  mainly  of  the  Crawford  party,  with  the  addition  of  some 
few  who  would  have  prefered  Mr.  Clay,  some  still  fewer  who  were 
more  particularly  in  favour  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  and,  some,  who  in  the 
course  of  the  contest,  after  Gen.  Jackson  had  been  placed  in  nomina- 
tion, manifested  their  first  preference  for  him. — Long  before  Gen. 
Jackson  had  been  named  as  a  candidate.  Col.  Orne  openly  announced 
his  determination  to  support  Mr.  Crawford,  and  was  the  first  man,  in 
point  of  time,  in  this  commonwealth,  who  took  ground  against  Mr. 
Adams  He  commenced  the  presidential  campaign  Iicre  by  advoca- 
ting, in  the  columns  of  the  I3oston  Statesman,  the  election  of  Mr. 
Crawford.     It  is  impossible  to  immagine  a  state  of  things  less  invit- 


17 

t 

ing  to  a  non-commital,  or  fenceman.  The  parties  through  the  United 
States,  at  that  time,  had  hardly  begun  to  break  ground  ;  and  here,  in 
this  state,  we  had  a  moral  certainty  of  toiling  in  a  minorify,  which, 
whatever  might  be  the  fate  of  the  party  at  large,  could  not  fail  to  be 
proscribed  and  persecuted  at  home.  .  The  timid  and  time  serving  pol- 
iticians, consequently,  had  no  hesitation  as  to  their  course.  What- 
ever might  be  their  secret  preference,  they  well  knew  that  the  coun- 
sels of  prudence  led  them  to  Mr.  Adams.  In  any  event  they  were 
secure  of  the  state  government,  with  all  its  advantages  ;  and,  if  suc- 
cess crowned  their  efforts,  they  would  add,  to  that  of  the  state,  the 
monopoly  of  the  national  patronage  ;  while  in  the  event  of  failure, 
they  would  constitute  so  powerful  a  minority  that  their  opposition  would 
be  feared,  and  their  support  conciliated.  No  man  who  was  not  con- 
stitutionally, and  in  principle,  bold,  resolute,  determined,  and  firm, — 
who  would  not  adhere  to  his  side  through  danger  and  difficulties, 
and  sink  or  swim  by  the  event  of  the  contest, — would  have  engaged 
in  the  forlorn  hope  of  heading  an  opposition  in  this  eommonwealth. 
He  who  was  the  first  to  engage  must,  by  the  course  of  circumstances, 
be  the  last  to  give  up.  To  such  a  man  there  was  no  door  to  retreat 
through.  The  loss  of  the  contest  was  the  loss  of  every  thing,  state  or 
national,  county,  district  or  municipal.  There  was  no  political  sup- 
port to  fall  back  upon,  no  trust  to  which  he  could  retreat,  in  the  ex- 
ecutive, legislative  or  judicial  departments  of  the  national  or  state  gov- 
ernments. The  event  of  failure  was  the  loss  of  every  thing  to  which 
a  politician  could  aspire — was  a  rout  entire  and  universal,  "  horse, 
foot^and  dragoons."  The  contest  was  to  be  conducted  with  immense 
labor,  arrd,  for  the  parties,  at  an  immense  expense.  Yet  in  this  con- 
test, so  hazardous  and  so  eventful.  Col.  Orne  engaged,  and  engaged 
the  first;  and  he  knows  nothing  of  the  politics  of  this  state,  on  this  oc- 
casion, who  does  not  know  that  it  was  a  contest  he  was  the  most  reso- 
lute to  conduct,  and  the  last  to  abandon. 

It  were  now  vain  to  reflect  upon  the  obvious  and  important  errors 
committed  in  this  state  by  the  Crawford  party.  The  public  sentiment, 
although  strongly  inclining  to  Mr.  Adams,  yet  was  anxiously  bent  upon 
preserving  the  integrity  of  the  great  national  republican  party.  Its 
preference  of  Mr.  Adams  was  not,  at  first,  so  strong,  as  to  induce  it 
to  support  him  at  the  hazard  of  the  division  and  downfall  of  the  party. 
In  the  result  of  a  party  nomination,  our  electors  were  strongly  disposed 
to  acquiesce.  They  still  preferred  their  party  to  their  candidate,  or 
rather  they  were  disposed,  in  conformity  with  the  established  disci- 
pline of  the  republican  party  here,  to  waive  their  personal  preferences, 
and  support  him  as  their  candidate,  who  should  be  that  of  their  party. 
It  was  the  policy  of  the  Crawford  party  to  obtain  for  him  the  party 
nomination  ;  and  while  they  avowed  their  willingness  to  abide  by  the 
result,  they  should  have  advocated  his  nomination  by  the  party,  with 
all  possible  openness  and  frankness,  zeal  and  solicitude.  Such  was 
the  policy  of  Col.  Orne.  But  in  this  he  was  opposed,  and  successful- 
ly opposed,  by  the  selfishness,  caution  and  timidity  of  the  present 
Statesman  leaders.     That  they  were  opposed  to  Mr.  Adams  could  on- 


18 

]y  be  smpedcd  by  their  caution  to  avoid  being  committed  in  his  favor. 
The  Statesman  was  filled  tor  years  with  solemn  asseverations  that  it  was 
not  opposed  to  Mr.  Adams,  nor  a  partizan  paper  of  Mr.  Crawford.  Its 
course  was  timid,  hesitating,  indirect  and  deceitful.  If  it  copied  an 
article  in  tavor  of  Mr.  Crawford,  the  timid  hare  does  not  sooner  leap 
at  the  approach  of  the  hunter,  than  this  selfish  paper  did,  to  defend  it- 
self from  an  imputation  that  it  supported  his  election.  It  was  in  vain  that 
Col.  Orne,  and  he  alone,  advocated  a  cause  at  once  more  manly,  hon- 
orable and  efficient.  The  non-committal  system  prevailed — the  cau- 
tious selfishness  of  the  Statesman  leaders  controlled  him,  and  secret 
manoeuvering  was  substituted  for  open,  manly  support.  The  result 
was  but  too  obvious.  The  cause  that  was  too  weak  to  be  avowed, 
was  too  hefeardous  to  be  supported  ;  and  the  fejicemen,  the  great  mass 
of  politicians  at  the  beginning  of  a  contest,  all  decided  against  us. 
The  opposite  bolder  course  might  have  kept  a  part,  and  there  was  a 
chance  of  keeping  a  respectable  part,  of  our  voters,  uncommitted,  un- 
til the  party  should  make  a  nomination.  But  languid  efforts  and  dis- 
sembled attachment  frightened  them  all  away,  and  "  fear  admitted  into 
party  j^olifics,  betrayed,  like  treason." 

In  another  important  respect  the  course  of  the  paper  departed  from 
his  views,  and  injured  the  party.  However  bold,  and  resolute,  and 
unequivocal  were  the  sentiments  of  Col.  Ojuie,  he  never  failed  to  urge 
upon  the  conductors  of  that  paper,  a  regard  fhr  decency  and  propriety 
in  its  language.  Coarse  and  vulgar  abuse  of  the  opposing  candidates 
was»not  adapted  to  the  intelligence,  or  taste,  of  our  community  ;  it 
might  degrade  ourselves,  but  could  not  advance  our  object.  He  wish- 
ed the  opposing  candidates  might  be  treated  with  courtesy  and  fairness, 
and  the  cause  placed  on  the  broad  ground  of  its  connexion  with  our 
political  institutions,  and  our  national  prosperity.  He  wished,  in  one 
word,  the  course  of  the  paper  to  be  as  dignified,  and  respectable  as 
the  "  Jackson  Republican"  was,  in  the  contest  which  has  just  ended. 
The  paper  was,  however,  controlled  by  different  councils,  and  its  tone 
was  lowered  to  the  level  of  Billingsgate  scurrility.  The  opposing  can- 
didates were,  when  at  length  the  Statesman  was  compelled  to  take  its 
ground,  treated  in  the  manner  which  has  since  characterized  the  de- 
portment of  the  paper  towards  Mr.  Adams.  There  was  no  newspa- 
per in  the  country  more  remarkable  for  its  vindictiveness  of  temper, 
and  disregard  of  decency,  in  its  political  discussions — and  there  has 
scarcely  been  a  paper  since  which  has  abused  Gen.  Jackson  in  more 
bold  or  unqualified  terms.  The  most  degrading  caricature  of  Gen. 
Jackson  which  has  ever  been  drawn  in  this  quarter,  was  exhibited  by 
Nathl.  Green  in  his  counting  rpom  on  the  floor  of  Merchants  Hall,  un- 
til the  undissemblcd  disgust,  even  of  the  friends  of  Mr,  Adams,  com- 
pelled him  to  remove  it.  The  violent  pamphlet  of  Jesse  Benton,  in 
abuse  of  the  General,  was  encouraged  and  aj)plauded,  and  even  the 
muse  of  scurrility  was  invoked  to  defame  him  in  doggerel  rhyme.  It 
were  a  curious  employment  to  turn  over  the  files  of  that  paper  if  any 
could  be  found,  during  the  last  contest,  to  examine  a  little  the  tone  of 
its  discussions.     If  an  Adams  paper  can  bo  found  which  has  treated 


Id         . 

Gen.  Jackson  with  less  decency,  it  \yo«ld  be  gratifying  to  learn  what 
part  of  the  country  gave  it  encouragement.  Its  attachment  to  Gen. 
Jackson,  will,  however,  sufficiently  appear  by  a  single  sentence  pub- 
lished in  that  paper  Oct.  12 — 1824,  at  almost  the  last  moment  of  the 
contest,  in  relation  to  Gen.  Jackson,  and,  I  believe,  Mr.  Calhoun. 

"  Mr.  Benton,"  it  says,  (in  relation  to  the  celebrated  pamphlet  of 
Mr.  Jesse  Benton)  "  has  done  his  duty  7iobly — he  has  exposed  to  the 
world  enough  of  the  errors  and  intrigues  of  these  two  men,  to  disquali' 
fif  them  FOREVER  from  [for]  the  office  of  President!" 
r    Up  to  the  eventful  moment  of  the  decision,  the  friends  of  Mr.  Craw- 
ford did  every  thing  for  him  that  undaunted,  spirit,  and  untiring  exer- 
tion, could  accomplish.    But  their  success  was  by  no  means  in  propor- 
tion to   their  efforts.     The  languor  at  the  commencement  enfeebled 
every  subsequent  exertion,  and  the   cause  which   men  were  afraid  to 
avow,  was  irretrievably  lost  when  their  courage  was  sufficiently  stimu- 
lated to  support  it.     It  is  needless  to  trace   out  the  immediate  conse- 
quences.    The  friends  of  Mr.  Adams  rejoiced,  and  lorded  it  proudly 
over  us.     We  returned  depressed  and  dispirited  into  a  minority,  but 
having  foreseen  and  embraced  the   alternative,  we  felt  no  disposition 
to  murmur  at  the  weight  of  the  arm  which  was  made  to  fall  upon  us. 
Objects  of  political  support  no  where,  and  of  proscription  at  home,  we 
endured  the  conse(|uences, — and  to  those  whose  position  depended  on 
the  public  favor,  they    were  consequences  of  no  slight  magnitude — 
with   fortitude  amd  resignation.     The   evil  was  severely  felt  by  those 
whose  career  was  political,  or  whose  profession  or  pursuits  made  them 
to  depend  on  the  favor  of  a  government,  or  the  support  of  a  party. 
The  dealers  in   drugs,  and  feathers,  and  paints,  might  sustain  no  in- 
convenience    in  -their    private   pursuits,  for   houses    might    still    be 
painted,  and  chambers  furnished  with  carpets,  and  exhausted  nature 
ask  bed^    and  matresses  to  repose  upon — the  rich  man  might  still  lan- 
guish for  his   healing  drug,  and  the  cheapest  venders  find  their  full 
proportion  of  purchasers,  although  their  politics  might  render  them  ob- 
jects  of  no   favor.     But  the   public   man  was  made  to  feel,  in  every 
avenue  that  he  entered,  the  full  measure  of  the  evil  he  had  drawn  on 
his  head. 

In.the  course  of  a  year  after  the  ascendancy  of  Mr.  Adams,  distinct 
indications  appeared  that  his  administration  did  not  attract  any  extra- 
ordinary proportion  of  the  public  confidence.  An  opposition  party  was 
formed,  and  the  Crawford  party  of  this  state  prepared  once  more  to 
engage  in  the  approaching  contest.  The  course  pursued  by  different 
portions  of  the  party  will  be  the  subject  of  other  numbers.  For  the 
present,  however,  I  will  only  ren^rk,  that  it  would  indeed  be^a  subject 
of  singular  curiosity,  if  another  campaign  should  find  men  changing 
•their  characters,  the  timid  to  become  firm,  and  the  irresolute  decided, 
while  the  boldest,  the  most  undaunted,  and  the  most  reckless  of  con- 
sequences, should  dwindle  down  to  the  timid  and  time  serving  parti- 
zans — "  non-committal  and  fence  men." 

During  the  series  of  years  involved  in  this  protracted  struggle,  the 
Crawford  party  were  never  strong  enough  to  engage,  as  a  party,  incur 
3 


90 

state  or  municipal  contests.  On  local  subjects  they  endeavored  to  act 
with  their  republican  brethern,  however  widely  they  difTered  from  them 
in  the  presidential  controversy.  The  character  of  the  respective  con- 
tests was  kept  distinct,  and  the  old  party  lines  continued  to  be  traced 
with  nnvielding  pertinacity.  Men*  violently  opposed  in  the  presiden- 
tial contest,  acted  together  with  equal  vehemence  in  our  state  elections  ; 
and  a  curious  contusion  of  parties  was  exhibited,  changinji,  like  the 
evolutions  of  a  battle  ground,  as  the  state  and  national  banner  w-ere 
successively  displayed.  For  reasons  which  the  sliglitcst  delicacy  will 
comprehend  wi  bout  recital.  Col.  Orne  took  no  part  in  any  contest  ex- 
cept that  which  had  an  immediate  reference  to  the  presidential  elec- 
tion. He  attended  no  caucus,  whether  municipal,  district,  county  or 
slate,  in  reference  to  state  elections,  and  none  in  reference  to  congres- 
sional elections,  as  the  Crawford  party  never  ran  a  candidate.  Wheth- 
er Mr.  Gorham,  IMr.*  Webster,  or  JNIr.  Putnam  succeeded,  was  a  ques- 
tion only  for  the  Adams  party  ;  and  each  Crawford  man  supported  the 
candidate  who  best  commanded  his  personal  confidence.  In  this  course 
Col.  0.  affected  no  secresy.  It  was  notoriously  known  to  all  his  per- 
sonal and  political  friends,  who  yielded  their  respect,  or  afre/:;tcd  to 
yield  it,  to  the  motives  which  governed  him.  In  the  midst  of  his  ani- 
mated exertions  to  support  Mr.  Crawford,  his  uriwillingness  to  engage 
in  state  politics  was  openly  proclaimed.  As  earlf  as  18i23  or  1824, 
when  Mr.  Eustis  was  first  chosen  Governor,  this  determination  of 
Col.  Orne  was  proclaimed  through  the  press.  The  q^ ntral  committee 
of  the  state,  for  the  Federal  party,  charged  him,  in  their  circular,  with 
holding  a  valuable  judicial  trust,  through  the  liberality  of  their  party, 
and  yet  engaging  with  violence  in  the  contest  to  oppose  them — with 
beino-  actually  an  editor  of  the  Statesman  newspaper.  This  charge 
was  publicly  denied  through  the  columns  of  the  Boston  Centinel,  and 
his  neutrality  in  that  contest,  as  well  as  his  want  of  editorial  counexion 
with  the  Boston  Statesman,  distinctly  asserted.  When  did  it  enter  the 
heart  of  man,  to  believe  or  pretend,  thB  withdrawing  from  state  poli- 
tics indicated  indifference  to  the  national  contest  ?  It  remained  for 
other  times  to  wrest  a  subsequent,  similar  act,  to  so  absurd  a  motive, — 
for  wanton  calumny  to  make  the  charge,  and  for  truth  to  refute  it. . 

COLUMBUS. 


COLUMBUS,  NO.  VI. 

The  election  of  Mr.  Adams  depressed,  for  a  w^hile,  the  hopes  and 
spirits  of  tiie  Crawford  party.  To  the  excitement  of  the  contest  suc- 
ceeded the  languor  and  prostration  or  hopeless  defeat.  To  win  over 
to  his  side  the  great  body  of  the  Crawford  party,  appeared  to  be  the 
first  and  leading  object  of  Mr.  Adams'  administration.  For  this  pur- 
pose the  principal  officers  of  his  cabinet,  and  a  large  portion  of  his  dip- 
lomatic appointments,  were  given  to  Crawford's  political  friends.  The 
small  party  in  this  state  were  too  weak  to  render  their  tionciliation  an 
object,  and  the  proffered   amnesty  was  not  made   to  embrace   thorn. 


21 

They  watched  with  solicitude  the  course  of  their  friends  in  other*  sec- 
tions of  the  country,  until  they  saw,  with  undissembled  satisfaction,  that 
the  great  mass  of  the  Crawford  party  were  of  too  elevated  a  character 
to  be  bought.  The  sentiment  given  by  the  leader  himself,  that  Mr. 
Adams  should  be  judged  by  his  measures,  appeared  to  be  that  of  the 
country.  But  the  session  of  Congress,  in  the  winter  of  1825-6,  shew 
that  an  opposition,  of  a  most  formidable  character  to  the  administration, 
would  be  formed.  The  project  of  the  Panama  mission,  of  entanfrlino- 
our  politics  with  the  affairs  of  other  countries,  gave  the  first  impulse  to 
the  oppf)sition,  and  rendered  it  apparent  that  it  would  embrace,  not  only 
the  whole  Jackson  party,  but  an  immense  proportion  of  that  of  Mr. 
Crawford.  The  discussions  on  this  measure  weie  obviously  the  com- 
mencement of  the  Jackson  campaign  ;  the  Crawford  party  made  com- 
mon cause  with  the  Jackson,  and  the  indications  were  by  no  means 
equivocal  that  General  Jackson  would  be  the  candidate. 

This  measure  excited  much  interest  among  the  Crawford  men  in  this 
state.  The  support  of  the  Panama  project,  and  the  opposition  to  it, 
was  the  line  of  division  between  the  two  great  parties,  afterwards  de- 
siggated  as  those  of  the  administration,  and  of  the  opposition.  The 
campaign,  in  this  contest,  as  in  that  which  had  terminated,  was  opened 
in  this  state  by  Col.  Orne,  who  opposed  the  Panama  project  at  length, 
in  several  numbers,  published  in  the  Boston  Statesman,  under  the  sig- 
nature of  an  ''  Old  Republican."  These  numbers  were  written,  and 
many  of  them  in  the  press,  before  the  injunction  of  secresy  was  re- 
moved from  the  proceedings  of  the  Senate.  A  comparison  of  the  ob- 
jections urged  by  Old  Republican,  with  those  taken  by  the  leading 
senators  of  the  Jackson  party,  as  appeared'by  their  speeches  after- 
wards published,  will  show  a  perfect  concurrence^of  political  and  par- 
ty views.  Some  of  these  numbers  were  republished  in  the  Washington 
Telegraph,  and  if  the  infamous  Duff  Green  was  then  its  editor,  of 
which  I  am  not  certain,  his  own  file's  can  bear  testimony  at  what  an; 
early  period  Col.  Orne  was  active  in  the  Jackson  cause.  My  impres- 
sion is  that  he  was  the  only  writer  in  the  Statesman,  at  that  time,  on  the 
politics  of  the  national  paities — but  as  all  his  writings  were  under  that 
signature,  a  reference  to  the  files  of  the  paper  can  determine  it.  At 
that  time  there  was  no  apparent  jealousy  in  the  Crawford  or  Jackson 
ranks,  as  they  were  indiscriminately  called,  in  this  quarter.  The  firsfe 
subject  of  difference,  and  it  was  not  supposed  to  be  one  very  serious 
at  the  time,  was  in  relatioji  to  the  state  elections  in  the  spring  of  1826. 

As  Mr.  Adams  had  been  supported  both  by  the  federal  and  democrat- 
ic parties  in  this  state,  his  election  necessarily  involved  some  confu'- 
sion  of  the  old  party  lines.  The  administration  party  embraced  the 
mass  of  both  the  old  parties,  while  the  opposition  party  was  the  minori- 
ty of  each.  Still  the  old  party  jealousies  v^  ere  too  fresh  to  admit  of  a 
perfect  consolidation,  and  federalists  and  democrats  were  continued  to 
be  the  rallying  party  words  of  many.  For  the  democratic  party  to  be 
successful,  the  union  among  the  Adams  and  Jackson  democrats,  in  the 
state  elections,  was  essential.  This  union  was  attempted — a  proper 
proportion  of  candidates  was  selected  for  the  senate,  from  each  part^ 


22 

in  this  county,  and  success  crowned  the  effort.       This  was  in  April, 
1826.     In  the  following  May,  the  election  for  representatives  came  on 
for  the  city.     A  "  host "  of  some  thirty  or  forty,  as  nearly   as  I  recol- 
lect, was  to  be  chosen.     Of  these  the  Jackson  democrats  were  entitled 
to  at  least  one  third  ;  but   when   the  list  was  promulgated   it  was  seen 
with  mortification  and  astonishment,  that  two  only  of  those    who  were 
nominally  Jackson  men,  Messrs.  John  K.  Simpson  and  Andrew  Dun- 
lap,  were  upon  it  ;  and  these  were  very  far  from  being  acceptable  se- 
lections.    The  Jackson  party  was  indignant,  and  considered  itself  be- 
trayed.     Such  a  connexion  was  a  virtual  abandonment   of  the  opposi- 
tion,— was  in  effect  a  surrender  of  our  party  colors — was  the  betrayal 
and  sale  of  the  Jackson  cause  for  the  miserable  equivalent  of  making 
David  Henshaw  a  senator,  and  John  K.  Simpson  and  Andrew  Dunlap 
members  of  the  house.     A  meeting  was  held  of  the  principle  members 
of  the  Jackson  party,  and  their  dissatisfaction  loudly  expressed.     They 
endeavored  to  effect  a  more   acceptable  arrangement,  but  failed,  and. 
determined,  sooner  than  submit  to  the  fatal  consequences  of  such  trea- 
son, to  defeat,  if  they  could,  the  election.     They  therefore,  agreed  on 
a  third  ticket,    with  a  view  of  dividing  the  votes  :  this   was  in  a  gfeat 
measure  accomplished,  a  few  only   of  the  number  being  chosen,  but, 
most  unfortunately,  in  that  number  were  John  K.  Simpson  and  Andrew 
Dunlap.     The  high  and  honorable  character  of  this  latter  gentleman, 
will  be  illustrated  by  a  single  anecdote.     Two  of  the  gentleman  who 
had  met  in  caucus,  indignant  at  the  sale  of  the  Jackson  party,  and  who 
had  pledged  themselves  to  support  the  third  rtcket,   were  zealously  be- 
set by  Mr.  Dunlap,  and  urged  to  distribute,  at  the  polls,  the  ^idams  and 
Clay  ticket.      This,  he  ^id,  would  be  a  masterly  manoeuvre,    would 
make  their  peace  with  the   Adams   and  Clay  party,  and  probably  con- 
ciliate towards  them  !ts  support.     The  sacred  pledge  of  political  honor 
to  support  the  ticket  of  their  nomination,  was  no  obstacle,   in  the  view 
of  this  high  minded  man,  in  the  way  of  his  "  masterly  mameuvre.''^ 

Among  those  who  opposed  this  sale  of  the  Jackson  party,  Qol. 
Orne  was  conspicuous,  for  though  aloof  from  the  state  contests,  except 
when  they  directly  involved  the  interests  of  tKe  presidential  controver- 
sy, he  could  not  regard  this  measure  with  indifference.  He  viewed  it 
as  destructive  of  the  interests  of  the  presidential  party — nay  more,  as 
an  act,  on  the  part  of  the  few  men  elected,  viz.  Messrs.  Henshaw,  Dun- 
lap and  Simpson,  as  a  secession  from  the  opposition,  and  a  virtual  ac- 
cession to  the  Adams  party.  The  event  justified  his  apprehensions. 
Messrs.  Henshaw,  Simpson  and  Dunlap  became  legislators,  and  if 
they  ever,  during  the  time,  made  an  effort  in  the  Jackson  cause,  or  ut- 
tered a  sentiment  in  its  support,  it  totally  escaped  the  observation  of 
the  writer.  Upon  that  subject  he  is  indeed  very  incredulous  to  this 
hour.  Their  official  acts  show  a  determined  support  for  candidates  for 
the  U.  S.  Senate,  of  Adams  men,  while  the  only  Jackson  man  put  in 
nomination  was  brought  forward  by  that  inflexible  and  honorable  parti- 
zan,  the  Hon.  Mr.  Seaver  of  Roxbury.  There  was  not  however 
another  Jackson  man  to  second  his  nomination.  During  this  political 
year  the  Statesman  played  its  cautious  and  non  committal  game.     The 


23 

Jackson  cause  slumbered  in  this  commonwealth,  and  as  his  determined 
partizans  were  without  a  newspaper,  the  prospects  of  an  opposition 
party  here  were  exceedingly  discouraging.  During  this  poHtical  year 
I  had  no  political  conversation  with  Mr.  Henshaw,  and  do  not  there- 
fore speak  of  his  sentiments  on  my  own  knowledge  ;  but  I  have  been 
credibly  informed,  and  believe,  that  the  opinions  he  expressed  of  Gen. 
Jackson,  were  as  full  of  violence  and  denunciation  as  those  of  any  Ad- 
ams man  in  the  commonwealth.  If  this  be  denied,  I  shall  name  such 
authorities  as  have  been  stated  to  me,  and  leave  the  fact  open  for  ex- 
planation. Repeated  attempts  were  also  made  to  procure  the  inser- 
tion, in  the  Statesman,  of  articles  published  in  other  quarters  of  the 
union,  favorable  to  Gen.  Jackson,  but  v/ithout  success.  Mr.  Greene 
did  not  care,  as  he  said,  a  ****  for  Gen.  Jackson,  but  regarded  bis 
own  interest.  He  had  suffered  enough  for  the  public — he  was  now 
for  himself.  The  want  of  a  Jackson  paper  was  tfie  cause  of  serious 
regret  to  the  Jackson  party.  One  gentleman,  in  the  warmth  of  his 
feeUngs*,  offered  to  subscribe  five  hundred  dollars  towards  the  expense 
of  procming  one. 

The  Federal  friends  of  Gen.  Jackson  were  in  equal  perplexity.   The 
most  earnest  attempts  were  made  by  them  to  induce  a  federal  paper  to 
embark  in  his  cause  ;  but  they    were   equally  disapprunted.     JSeither 
the  advance  of  funds,  nor  any  other  inducement,  could  effect  their  ob- 
ject.    Towards  the  close  of  the  political  year,    however,  in  the  spring 
of  1827,  a  Mr.  Reinhart  attempted  to  supply  the  deficiency,   and  came 
out  with    his   prospectus  for  a  Jackson  paper,  to  be  called  the  "  North 
Ameri';an  Democrat."     He  had  no  funds  of  his  own  to  ei?tablish  a  pa- 
per, and  proposed  to  publish  it  but  once  a'week.     The  project  was  not 
well  received,  for  several  reasons.     A  paper  was   wanted  to  advocate 
the  cause  of  Gen.  Jackson,  independent  of  other  political  dffferences — » 
one  of  great  temper  and  discretion,  as  well  as  of  decision  and  firmness. 
To  Mr.  Reinhart's  qualifications  the  friends  of  Gen.  Jackson  generally 
were   strangers.     A  paper   that    should  be  published  more  frequently^ 
was  also  desired — but  the  main  reason  was  one  which  we  shall  explain, 
directly,  metre  at  large — a  prospect  which  then   began  to   appear  that 
the  Statesman  would  leave  its  neutral  position,    and  come  out   openly 
for  Jackson.     Col.  Orne  had  not  much  confidence  in    the   success  of 
Mr.  Reinhart's  project,  but,  ready  as  he  was  always  to  encourage  any 
effort  tor  his  party,  he  agreed  to  subscribe  towards  the  establisiiment  of 
the  paper,  as   much   as  others,  its  principal  friends.     Mr.    Reinhart 
could  not  raise  the  funds,  and  abandoned  the  project.     He  left  Boston 
with  an  intention  of  procuring,  if  he  could,    a    connexion   with  Duff 
Green,   and   the   Washington  Telegraph.      Having   no  acquaintance 
with  Mr.  Green,  he  applied  to  Col.   Orne  for  a  letter  of  introduction. 
As  that  gentleman  was  also  a  stranger  to  Duff  Green,  he    could  only 
give  him   one,    as  from  a  member *of  the    party   in   whose  behalf  Mr. 
Gre'en  was  engaged.     Such  a  letter  was  written — and  if  it  was  ever  de- 
livered, the  infamous  Duff  Green,  had,  in  his  own  hands,  in  the  spring 
of  1827,  the  written  testimonial  of  Col.  Orne,  of  his  attachment  to  the 
cause.     As  Col.  Orne  had  very  little  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Reinhart, 


24 

he  could  conceive  no  motive  for  his  apphcation  to  him,  other  than  a  be- 
lief that  he  was  the  prominent  friend  of  Gen  Jackson  in  this  quarter.  Yet 
the  infamous  Duff  Green  is  the  man  who  wishes  to  impress  it  on  the 
community  that  Col.  Orne  was  a.  fenceman  until   within  ^    year  of  the 

election  ! 

The  prospect  of  a  more  direct  and  manly  course  on  the  part  of  the 
Statesman  arose  from  the  result  of  the  projected  union  l)etween  the  Ad- 
ams partv,  and  Messrs.  Henshaw,  Simpson  and  Dunlap.  Tlie  princi- 
pal leaders,  as  well  federal  as  democratic,  of  the  Adams  party,  saw  its 
disunion  in  relation  to  state  politics  with  undissembled  regret.  Great 
etibrts  were  accordingly  made  to  effect  an  union,  or,  as  it  was  called  in 
the  quaint  language  of  the  day,  an  ainalgamatio?i  ;  and  they  were  suc- 
cessful. A  ticket  was  agreed  upon  both  for  senators  and  repre- 
sentatives, in  which  the  Adams  party  had  confidence,  and  in  which 
the  names  of  Hensliaw,  Simpson  and  Dunlap,  were  not  contained. 
The  Jacksonism  of  the  Statesman,  theretbre,  at  once  flamed  out, 
and  men  disappointed  in  state  politics  began  to  play  their  gfame  on 
the  broader  scale  of  the  presidential  contest.  From  this  liioment 
appeared  in  their  movements  a  scarcely  suppressed  resentment  to- 
wards Col.  Orne.  His  opposition  .to  their  union  with  the  Adams 
and  Clay  party  on  terms  of  such  ruinous  inequality, — for  the  «ole 
advantage,  in  fact,  of  gratifying  the  little  longings  of  these  would 
be  statesmen,  to  figure  in  tne  newspapers  as /io?ior/76/t'^  and  'squireSj 
^_  provoked  a  hostility  which  no  consijderations  of  political  honor  or 
party  interest  could  appease.  To  injure  him  was  undoubtedly  the 
fixed  determination  of  thfese  men,  from  that  moment,  but  their  hos- 
tility was  disguised  by  smiles,  and  strong  expressions  of  personal  at- 
tachment. The  accession  of  these  men,  and  of  the  Statesman 
newspaper 'to  the  Jackson  cause,  took  place  in  the  spring  of  1827. 
But  a  circumstance  soon  occurred  to  show  how  much  reliance  could 
be  placed  on  their  consistency 

Early  in  18!27,  if  I  remen)ber  correctly,  Mr.  Webster  was  chosen 
to  the  U.  S.  senate,  and  vacated,  in  consequence,  his  seat  in  the 
house,  as  the  representative  of  this  district.  Mr.  Gorham  was  cho- 
sen as  his  successor — but  Mr.  Henshaw,  whose  political, elevation 
had  awakened  an  ambition  to  take  a  higher  and  a  wider  flight,  cast 
his  eyes  too  on  this  political  boon.  If  the  man  had  possessed  the 
smallest  knowledge  of  his  standing  in  this  community,  he  might 
well  have  anticipated  the  result.  He  obtained  some  four  or  five 
hundred  votes,  out  of  many  thousands.  His  ambition,  however, 
would  have  been  overlooked  as  the  ebullition  of  an  idle  vanity,  if 
his  course  had  not  again  seriously  injured  the  Jackson  party.  In- 
stead of  offering  himself  as  the  candidate  of  the  party,  he  caught  at 
one  of  those  occasional  collisions  in  the  public  sentiment  which  set 
party  discipline  at  defiance.  The  tariff  policy  excited  much  feeling 
among  our  merchants,  and  many  were  determined  to  vote  fo^  no 
candidate,  whose  opposition  to  the  tariff  was  not  explicit  and  avow- 
ed. Mr.  Henshaw  tried  to  mount  this  hobby,  but  he  would  not  go 
<— if  our  merchants  wanted  an  anti-tariff  man,  they  did  not  want  him, 


.  ,  25 

and  although  the  federalists  were  solicited  most  piteously  to  support 
him,  they  were  hard-hearted   enaucrh  to  turn   a  deaf  ear. 

There  is  sometliing  so  much  like  political  prostitution  in  solicit- 
ing emhraces  from  whatever  quarter  tliey  may  come. — or  courting 
the  tavor  of  any  party  who  may  be  won,  whatever  their  principles  or* 
their  objects  may  be,  that  the  exhibition  of  it  is  usually  excesj^ively 
disgusting  to  the  honorable  politician.  •But  in  tliis  case  the  dropping 
of  the  Jackson  flao^  to  raise  one  ai^ainst  the  tariff,  was  peculiarly  inju- 
rious to  the  Jacks  m  cause.  The  Harrisburg  Convention  was  then, 
by  a  master  stroke,  endeavoring  to  identif}-  the  tariff  policy  with  the 
Adams  administration,  and  to  place  Gen.  Jackson  in  the  opposing 
ranks.  The  line  would  have  been  fatal  to  his  prospects.  The  whole 
of  the  middle,  and  some  of  the  western,  as  well  as  all  the  northern 
states,  would  *liave  been  driven,  irretrievably,  from  Ris  cause.  It  was 
the  master  spring  in  motion  to  overthrow  our  cause,  by  compelling 
Gen.  Jackson  to  avow  the  tariff  policy  and  ].C)se  the  south,  or  disclaim 
it  and  sacrifice  all  the  rest  of  his  support.  It  was  a  wily  game,  and  it 
was'  cunningly  played  ;  but  Heaven,  and  Qur  good  cause,  enabled  us 
to  elude  it.  The  only  safety  to  the  party,  was  in  separating  the  Jack- 
son cause  from  the  embarrassing  tariff  question.  At  such  a  moment 
for  a  Jackson  man  in  this  quarter  to  identify  his  cause  with  the  oppo- 
sition lo  the  tariff,  evinced  an  obtusiveness  in  politics  discreditable  in 
school-boys.  As  Mr.  Henshaw  was  not  run  as  a  Jackson  candidate, 
and  it,  is  really  exceedingly  doubtful  whether,  at  that  time,  he  had 
done  an  act,  or  uttered  a  sentiment,  in  his  favor,  the  Jackson  party 
might  have  eluded  the  folly  of  the  measure,  and  such  as  were  friend- 
ly to  the  tariff,  might  even  have  opposed  him  with  propriety,  if  the 
Statesman  had  not  declared  in  his  favor.  But  this  paper  was  then  the 
only  one  among  us,  ostensibly  or  really  friendly  to  Jackson  ;  its  candi- 
datenvas  necessarily  viewed  as  that  of  the  party — and  the  folly  was 
only  made  the  more  injurious  by  the  recollection  of»the  fact,  that  the 
Statesman  was  established  to  ^pport  the /jro/e^cfmsf  sydem^  and  had  al- 
ways avowed  its  attachment  to  it.  A  more  shuffling  and  contemptible 
inconsistency  was  never  incurred  for  the  miserable  object  of  gratifying 
private  ambition  ;  and  never  was  the  policy  of  abandoning  establish- 
ed principles  to  run  after  temporary  expt^dients,  more  fatally  exempli- 
fied. To  say  that  Col.  Orne  disapproved  of  this  measure,  had  no  hand  in 
it,  refused  it  support,  is  but  feebly  to  express  his  sentiments.— He  view- 
ed it  with  deep  and  undissembled  disgust  and  mortification.  He  ex- 
pressed his  feelings  openly,  and  gained  but  an  additional  claim  to  the 
hostility  of  intriguing  politicians.  They  smothered  their  resentment  for 
a  while  ;  but.  the  fire  was  now  kindling  beneath  the  ashes  which  was 
soon  afterwards  to  burst  out  in  livid  flames,  and  to  rage  but  the  more 
vehemently  for  the  momentary  check  which  was  placed  on  its  -pro- 
gress. COLUMBUS. 


26 


COLUMBUS,  NO.   VII. 

After  the  contest  in  this  congressional  dlftrict  for  the  choice  of  a 
successor  to  Mr.  Webster,  there  \»as  no  public  occasion  on  which  the 
Jackson  party  was  called  to  act,  until  the  winter  following,  of  1827 — 8. 
The  time  was  rapidly  approacl^ing  when  the  presidential  contest  was 
to  commence  in  good  earnest,  and  for  arrangements  to  support  the 
candidates  at  the  polls.  The  recurrence  of  the  anniversary  of  the  8th 
of  January  presented  an  occasion  for  a  distinct  Jackson  movement, 
and  it  was  zealously  embraced  by  the  party.  "The  attempts  made  to 
coalesce  with  the  Adams  men  having  failed,  and  Messrs.  Henshaw, 
Simpson  and  Dunlap,  having  been  rather  indignantly  driven  from  that 
party,  a  zealous  support  of  the  presidential  contest  was  anticipated,  as 
well  as  a  harmonious  co-operation  among  those  who  had  been,  in  some 
degree,  alienated  by  the  conduct  above-mentioned. 

The  arrangements  for'  a '  dinner  cele4:)ration  are  generally  left  to 
those  who  have  a  taste  for  such  things,  and  will  take  on  thems.elves 
the  trouble  and  responsibility  of  making  them."  The  whole  control  and 
directions  are  yielded  to  those  who  begin  the  movement,  and  this  in 
perfect  confidence  that  they  will  regard  the  interests  and  harmony  of 
the  party,  in  whose  behalf  they  profess  to  act.  On  this  occasion  Mr. 
Dunlap  and  some  five  or  six  others,  assumed  the  responsibility,  and 
selected  the  committee  of  arrangements.  The  members  of  the  party, 
as  is  usual,  took  no  other  interest  in  the  proceedings  than  to  plflce  their 
names  on  the  subscription  paper  when  it  was  offered  them.  As  this 
was  a  military  celebration,  and  Gen.  Boyd  was  not  only  a  distinguish- 
ed military  commander,  but  among  the  earliest  and  most  decided  of 
Gen.  Jackson's  friends,  the  party,  and  the  public  generally,  expected 
to  see  him  preside  on  the  occasion.  But  tli^  selfish  projects,  ^\ihich 
we  shall  soon  detail  more  at  length,  but  which  were  not  then  suspect- 
ed by  any  but  the  conspirators,  led  to  a  different  determination  by  the 
committee  of  arranijements,  who  had  bFen  selected  carefuHv  for  the 
purpose.  The  modest  Mr.  Henshaw,  who  is  so  unwilling  to  receive 
honors  from  the  government,  and  is  still  more  diffident  when  they  are 
awarded  by  his  fellow-citizens,  had  not  yet  received  quite  enough  of 
the  favors  of  the  party,  but  consented,  very  reluctantly  no  doubt,  to 
bear  the  honors  of  the  day.  The  other  arrangements  were  made  in  a 
similiar  spirit  of  intrigue.  The  only  notice  taken  of  Col".  Orne  was  to 
receive  from  him  the  price  of  his  ticket,  and  afterwards  an  additional 
sum  to  meet  the  excess  in  the  expenditures.  The  low,  mean  cunning 
of  this  course,  neitiier  surprised,  nor  gave  him  any  anxiety.  Satisfied 
that  the  great  body  of  the  Jackson  party  here  would  do  him  justice, 
he  saw  with  equal  indifference  and  contempt,  the  jealousy  and  hostili- 
ty of  the  intriifuincr  manajrers.  The  8th  of  January  dinner  was  follow- 
ed  in  Marjch  by  another  official  party  act.  A  Jackson  caucus  was 
holden,  and  resolutiona  were  adopted  in  favor  of  the  Jackson  cause  ; 
th'  se  had  been  prepared  beforehand  by  the  intriguers — but  they  were 
submitted  to,  and  hastily  revised  by  a  committee  of  the  meeting,  on 


27 

which  Col.  Ornc  was  placed.  The  same  meeting  nominated  a  Jack- 
son list  of  senators,  on  which  Col.  Orne's  name  also  was  found,  but 
which,  it  seems,  not  being  intended  by  the  intriguers,  gave  them  great 
dissatisfaction  and  uneasiness.  It  was  then  perceived  that  the  people 
could  not  be  made  the  instruments  to  gratify  their  hostility  to  Col, 
Orne  ;  and  these  unprincipled  men  decided  on  another  expedient, 
which,  for  its  outrageous  character,  may  challenge  comparison  with 
the  most  execrable  profligacy  which  has  ever  disgraced  the  conduct  of 
any  party  in  this  government.  It  was  then  decided  that  the  Jackson 
party  should  be  allowed  no  further  voice  in  the  measures  which  should 
be  adopted.  Having  the  control,  in  their  own  hands,  of  the  only  pa- 
per in  the  service  of  the  party,  they  felt  able  to  effect  their  object,  if 
they  could  wrap  their  proceedings  in  sufficient  mystery.  And  it  was 
not  until  the  full  measure  of  their  iniquities  appeared,  that  even  sus- 
picion was  aroused  ;  for  the  man  must  have  a  black  heart,  who  could 
have  apprehended  measures  of  such  enormity.  This  plan  was  for  the 
intriguers  themselves  to  take  from  the  people  the  nomination  of  elec- 
tors, and  put  up  such  men  as  they  could  depend  on  to  aid  them,  not 
only  for  this  district,  but  for  the  whole  commonwealth.  The  manner 
in  which  they  effected  their  object,  I  shall  now  proceed  to  relate. 

The  Jackson  party  was  nominally  organized  by  the  committees  call- 
ed county  and  ward  committees,  comprehending  from  one  hundred  and 
twenty,  to  one  hundred  and  sixty  persons,  in  number.  These  men 
had  been  placed  on  the  committees  in  a  very  irregular  manner,  at  va- 
rious times,  in  reference  to  a  great  variety  of  political  objects  ;  but 
their  choice,  although  intended  to  be  an  annual  act  of  the  party,  had 
not  been  submitted  to  the  people  for  some  years.  When  preparing 
for  the  Jackson  campaign,  the  correct  course  was  to  call  for  a  regular 
organization  by  the  people  friendly  to  the  cause,  but  this  might  defeat 
the  object.  By  the  rules  of  the  committee,  notifications  were  to  be 
specially  sent  to  each  member  of  the  committee,  when  a  meeting  was 
to  be  convened.  As  meetings  were  sometimes  necessary  to  transact 
business  of  little  import,  a  common  notification,  wherein  no  special  ob- 
ject was  indicated,  would  ordinarily  procure  the  attendance  of  about 
twenty  members  only.  When  the  intriguers  were  prepared  for  the 
attempt,  they  called  a  meeting  of  the  committees  without  giving  the 
special  notification  required  by  the  rules,  and  without  intimating  the 
importance  of  the  object.  The  consequence  was,  not  one  man  in  five 
of  the  committee  knew  of  the  meeting,  and  still  fewer  knew  its  object. 
Of  the  whole  body  of  ward  and  county  committees,  there  were  short  of 
eighteen  members  present.  The- business  was  then  declared  to  be  to 
choose  delegates,  about  twenty  in  number,  I  think,  on  behalf  of  the 
friends  of  Gen.  Jackson  in  Boston,  to  attend,  what  they  were  to  call, 
a  legislative  convention.  The  meeting  accordingly  proceeded  to 
choose  twenty  delegates,  carefully  designatmg,  of  course,  a  majority 
who  were  in  the  secret.  They,  of  course,  also,  were  especially  care- 
ful that  Col.  Orne  was  not  of  the  number;  he,  indeed,  was  wholly  un- 
informed that  the  project  was  in  agitation.  The  same  number  of 
committee  men  then  proceeded  to  designate  two  of  the  candidates  for 
4 


S8 

electors,  living  in  this  district,  whom  they  should  wish  to  have  support- 
ed in  the  legishtive  convention;  and  in  this  little  body  of  prepared  men, 
David  Henshaw  and  John  K.  Simpson  got  the  majority  of  votes. — 
Whether  both  these  gentlemen  were  present  or  not,  or  what  number 
of  their  brothers,  l  do  not  remember. 

The  same  steps  were  taken,  with  the  same  secrecy,  in  the  neigh- 
boring towns  of  Cambridge,  Charlestown,  and  Roxbury,  and  between 
thirty  and  forty  of  such  delegates  chosen  altogether.  At  length  the 
time  arrived  for  holding  the  legislative  convention.  In  the  legislature, 
out  of  tour  or  five  hundred  members,  there  were  perhaps  ten,  willing 
to  support  Gen.  Jackson.  There  was  not,  of  Jackson  men,  an  actual 
representation  of  more  than  one  fiftieth  part  of  the  commonwealth. 
These  thirty  or  forty  delegates,  with  the  eight  or  ten  members,  com- 
posed the  legislative  convention,  and  were  to  set  up  a  candidate  for 
elector  of  president,  in  every  district  of  the  state,  and  two  candidates 
for  the  whole  commonwealth.  When  the  convention  assembled,  Mr. 
Dunlap,  on  behalf  of  the  Boston  delegates,  informed  that  body,  that  the 
Jackson  party  of  Boston  had  selected  as  their  candidate  for  the  dis/ncf, 
John  K.  Simpson,  and  offered,  as  a  candidate  for  the  commonwealth, 
David  Henshaw.  Other  candidates  were  then  named  for  the  other 
districts,  and  for  the  remaining  elector  at  large, —  a  central  committee 
was  appointed  with  Mr.  Dunlap  as  its  chairman, — and  the  convention 
adjourned.  The  Jackson  party  of  Boston  were  then  informed  that  the 
legislative  convention  had  nominated  for  this  district,  Messrs.  Henshaw 
and  Simpson.  It  was  in  vain  the  president  of  the  convention,  a  mem- 
ber of  the  legislature,  and  one  ignorant  of  the  intrigue,  suggested  to 
the  Boston  delegates,  that  they  would  perhaps  do  better  to  nominate 
Col.  Orne  for  elector  at  large,  and  Mr.  Henshaw  for  the  district — but 
this,  he  soon  found,  would  not  answer  the  object  of  the  delegates. 
Col.  Orne  was  not  even  to  be  noticed  as  a  member  of  the  party,  no, 
not  so  much  as  to  be  placed  on  the  central  committee.  When  these 
proceedings  came  to  light,  they  excited,  as  might  naturally  be  suppos- 
ed, a  general  burst  of  indignation.  Meetings  were  holden  by  the  party, 
and  inquiries  were  made  why  these  things  were  so.  A  committee  was 
chosen  to  examine  into  the  proceedings,  and  see  if  it  were  too  late 
for  the  people  in  the  districts  to  select  their  own  candidates.  This 
committee  held  a  conference  with  the  central  committee,  but  were  told 
by  Mr.  Dunlap  its  chairman,  that  as  the  central  committee  were  chos- 
en by  a  legislative  convention  representing  the  state,  they  could  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  people  in  this  district,  and  must  proceed  to  pub- 
lish the  nominations  agreed  upon.  A  second  interview  was  had,  and 
the  danger  of  dividing  the  friends  of  Gen.  Jackson  insisted  on — but  Mr. 
Dunlap  thought  *'  a  division  would  be  no  evil, — that  as  the  party,  by 
its  union,  was  not  strong  enough  to  effect  a  vote,  its  division  would 
occasion  no  injury,  and  the  party  might  as  well  be  divided  as  other- 
wise." He  who  is  acquainted  with  political  intrigue  can  be  at  no  loss 
to  comprehend  this  language.  It  were  as  much  as  to  say,  "  we  have 
the  only  paper  of  the  party,  and  can  represent  these  things  to  the  pub- 
lic as  we  please — we^  with  this  newspaper,  will  obtain  all  the  offi-oes^ 


29 

and  the  fewer  there  are  to  be  competitors  with  us  the  better — the  smallei' 
the  number  of  friends  Gen.  Jackson  has,  the  greater  will  be  the  chance  for 
each  to  receive  an  appointment  at  his  hands.^^  It  was  accordingly  decid- 
ed that  there  should  be  no  attempt  to  prevent  a  division.  Circum- 
stances to  which  I  shall  hereafter  refer,  soon  demonstrated  that  the 
object  was  to  make  Mr.  Henshaw  the  collector,  Mr.  Duulap  the  dis- 
trict attorney,  and  Mr.  Greene  the  postmaster.  Bnt  the  people  were 
not  satisfied  with  Mr.  Dunlap's  reasoning,  and  a  public  meeting  was 
loudly  called  for.  Open  discord  in  our  ranks,  however,  was  an  evil 
which  the  most  discreet  were  unwilling  to  incur  for  any  consequences 
whatever.  Mr.  Henshaw,  to  allay  the  excitement,  denied  that  his  ob- 
ject was  any  office,  and  pledged  himself  sacredly  that,  under  no  cir- 
cumstances whatever,  would  he  be  a  candidate  for  the  collectorship. 
Mr.  Simpson  went  round  to  the  people,  almost  with  tears  in  his  eyes, 
imploring  their  compassion.  It  would  be  so  humiliating  to  him  to  be 
compelled  to  decline,  although  he  must,  if  they  insisted  upon  it  ;  and  if 
they  would  suffer  his  nomination  to  remain,  he  would  pledge  himself 
never  to  be  a  candidate  again  for  any  public  office.  Mr.  Dunlap 
thanked  his  God,  that  he  was  not  a  candidate  for  any  office,  and  would 
take  none  in  the  gift  of  the  government  of  the  United  States.  Other 
people  might  be  office  seekers,  but  he  was  above  it.  All  acknowledg- 
ed the  error  and  regretted  it,  but  insisted  upon  it  that  it  was  too  late 
to  be  retrieved,  and  the  interests  of  the  party  required  that  we  should 
make  the  best  of  it.  Influenced  by  such  considerations  the  party  con- 
sented to  overlook  the  enormity  of  the  transactions  ;  but  to  prevent 
such  intrigues  again,  by  the  monopoly  of  the  press,  determined  that 
a  new  paper  should  be  established.  In  pursuance  ofthis  determination 
the  Jackson  Republican  soon  after  came  into  being. 

Upon  this  state  of  things,  one  reflection  must  be  obvious  to  the  most 
common  observer.  Men  who  are  confident  of  obtaining  the  support  of 
the  people,  can  have  no  motive  for  taking  the  nomination  of  candidates 
out  of  their  hands.  Mystery  and  management  will  never  be  resorted 
to,  when  success  can  be  openly  obtained.  There  is  always  some  odi- 
um attached  to  intrigue,  and  honors  that  are  freely  bestowed  by  the 
people  are  much  more  grateful  than  those  which  are  wrested  from 
them.  It  is  conscious  weakness,  and  not  strength,  which  resorts  to 
management — secrecy  is  suited  to  artifice,  but  power  seeks  the  light. 

If  the  honest  mind  turns  with  disgust  from  the  exhibition  of  such  de- 
pravity, it  is  difficult  to  characterize  the  sentiment  which  must  be  ex- 
cited when  the  motives  which  led  to  it  are  laid  open.  This  must  be  the 
object  of  the  next  number  ;  and  in  approaching  so  disgusting  a  subject, 
I  am  sensible  of  a  sentiment  which  almost  arrests  the  hand,  and  turns 
it  from  the  uplifting  veil, — it  is  shame  that  it  was  a  transaction  of  my 
countrymen.  COLUMBUS. 


COLUMBUS,  NO.  YIII. 

When  a  party  constitutes  but  a  small  minority   in  a  town,   county, 
district  or  commonwealth,  its  most  incessant  aim  should  be  to  increase 


30 

its  numbers  ;  and  the  obvious  course  to  attain  this  object  is  to  preserve 
harmony  among  friends,  confirm  the  wavering,  win  over  the  neutral, 
and  conciliate  opponents.  Numbers  must  be  increased  by  making  the 
doubtful  become  partizans,  and  converting  enemies  to  friends.  ^\  hen 
men  are  governed  by  motives  of  public  good,  or  party  success,  it  is 
impossible  that  these  means  should  not  be  used,  or  thU  the  object 
should  be  disregarded.  But  when  views  of  self  interest  alone  predom- 
inate, the  natural  results  are  dissensions  among  friends,  and  jealousy 
of  any  increase  which  may  augment  the  competitors  for  the  favors  of 
the  government.  When  men  flatter  themselves  with  being  viewed  as 
the  leaders  of  their  party,  they  are  still  more  acutely  jealous  of  the  ac- 
cession of  those  whose  superior  qualifications,  or  greater  weight  of 
character,  may  place  that  ascendency  in  jeopardy.  When  circum- 
stances have  given  a  prominency  to  an  individual  which  has  already 
attracted  the  observation  of  his  party,  and  made  him  certain  of  receiv- 
ing its  favors,  if  the  contest  were  then  to  finish,  he  views  with  undis- 
sembled  uneasiness  the  efforts  of  others  in  the  cause,  lest  the  result 
should  deprive  him  of  his  comparative  pre-eminence.  But  if  such  an 
individual,  besides  the  love  of  distinction,  has  fixed  his  mind  on  a  pub- 
lic trust,  of  great  value,  the  exertions  of  a  man  whom  he  may  view  as 
a  rival,  and  fear  as  a  competitor,  excites  the  worst  feelings  of  his  bo- 
som ;  and  the  disposition  to  put  him  down  is  the  master  passion  before 
which  every  other  consideration  must  give  way.  If  there  be  a  single 
circumstance  which  can  add  to  the  fury  which  rages  in  his  breast,  it 
is  the  consciousness  that  the  advantages  he  possesses  over  his  rival  are 
accidental  ,and  unmerited,  and  are  liable  justly  to  be  lost  on  the  slightest 
occasion.  If  such  a  man  be  without  substantial  claims  to  distinction, 
and  destitute  of  political  honor,  he  will  turn  on  his  rival  like  the  infuri- 
ated tiger,  rabid  for  blood.  His  accidental  advantage  will  be  defend- 
ed at  every  inch,  and,  before  he  will  part  with  it,  he  will  put  in  requi- 
sition every  nerve  and  every  artifice  that  his  nature  or  evil  passions 
can  have  supplied  him  with  ;  and  will  seize  on  every  occasion  to  his 
advantage  that  may  otFer,  as  if  his  life's  blood  depended  on  his  eflbrts. 
He  who  watches  the  conduct  of  such  a  man  will  see  malice,  and  envy, 
and  hatred,  in  hideous  and  revolting  exhibition.  Every  step  of  his 
adversary  will  be  obstructed — every  movement  opposed — every  favor 
bestowed  on  him  viewed  with  deep  and  bitter  jealousy  ;  and  if  the 
danger  cannot  otherwise  be  repelled,  malice  and  defamation  will  fas- 
ten on  his  character  J  and  intrigue,  management  and  artifice  will  aim 
at  his  destruction. 

M  e  have  known  a  man  who,  from  a  circumstance  of  no  great  moment, 
had  gained  through  the  country  notoriety  as  a  Jackson  man  in  this 
commonwealth,  and  who  was  indiscreet  enough  to  acknowledge  that 
he  saw  with  regret  any  progress  in  the  Jackson  cause  among  us,  as  it 
detracted  from  his  own  advantageous  position.  "  I  stand  well  enough 
as  it  is,"  he  says;  "  the  smaller  the  party,  the  better  my  own  chance." 
He  acted  for  himself,  and  he  failed. 

The  control  of  the  statesman  paper  had  given  to  its  leaders  a  fac- 
titious consequence  which  they  were  determined  to   maintain  at  every 


31 

hazard.  The  paper  avouched  for  the  eminence  of  its  friends — who 
could  dispute  it  ?  It  proclaimed  prominent  in  the  Jackson  cause  whom 
it  pleased — it  nominated  candidates — it  chose  committees  of  arrange- 
ments— it  made  presidents  of  dinners — and  it  announced  the  leaders 
of  the  party.  The  evil  of  a  single  press,  and  that  under  tlie  control 
of  interested  men,  is  one  that  all  will  deeply  feel  who  are  suhjccted 
to  it  :  but  it  was  borne  by  the  Jackson  party  with  great  equanimity. 
To  aid  the  impression  the  paper  was  endeavoring  to  make,  resort  was 
had  to  other  little  artifices.  Jf  a  stranger,  distinguished  in  the  Jack- 
son cause,  arrived  in  the  city,  he  would  naturally  inquire  of  the  Jack- 
son paper  for  his  prominent  friends — or  if  inquiry  was  not  made,  some 
minion,  established  in  the  great  public  houses,  would  be  always  ready 
to  give  notice  of  his  arrival.  He  would  be  told  of  the  Statesman 
leaders — they  would  be  brought  to  him, — and  he  would  carry  to  a  dis- 
tance an  impression  of  their  eminence.  When  an  honorable  man  is 
placed,  by  the  nature  of  the  party  contest,  among  dishonorable  associ- 
ates, who  possess  advantages  and  resort  to  artifices  like  these,  he  must 
indeed  be  high  in  the  public  confidence,  if  he  be  not,  in  the  end,  a 
victim. 

This  state  of  feeling  will  readily  explain  the  jealousy  manifested  by 
the  Statesman  leaders  towards  the  federal  friends  of  Gen.  Jackson,  in 
this  section  of  the  country.  No  matter  how  honestly  they  had  become, 
or  how  long  they  had  been,  active  members  of  the  great  republican 
party.  No  matter  how  wide  the  gulf  which  had  been  placed  between 
them,  and  tiie  party  and  the  politics  of  federalists.  No  matter  what 
'persecutions  they  may  have  suffered  in  defending  their  cause.  It  was 
enough  for  them  to  be  denounced  by  the  Statesman,  that  they  were 
men  of  so  much  character  and  standing,  as  to  endanger  the  accidental 
advantages  of  the  self  proclaimed  leaders.  The  jealousy  of  superior 
qualifications  and  standing  is  one  of  the  most  common  qualities  of  the 
low  and  vulgar,  and  it  was  felt,  in  all  its  energy,  by  the  controllers  of 
the  Statesman.  Who  then  can  wonder  that  they  denounced,  instead 
of  conciliating,  the  federal  friends  of  the  General,  the  Lyman  party  as 
they  termed  it  t  If  the  support  of  Gen.  Jackson  had  been  the  object 
of  the  Statesman,  its  leaders  would  have  hailed  the  accession  of  such 
men  to  the  republican  cause,  with  undissembled  delight.  But  when 
office  only  was  in  view,  they  regarded  their  approach  as  bringing  dan- 
ger to  their  object.  They  struggled  for  office,  and  they  sacrificed  the 
cause. 

But  little  sagacity  is  required  to  discover  in  this  temper  of  the  in- 
triguers the  cause  of  their  hostility  to  Col.  Orne.  They  well  knew 
that  there  was  no  other  man  in  the  state  who  took  so  deep  an  interest 
in  the  presidential  question,  had  devoted  himself  so  arduously  to  the 
cause,  or  had  been  in  it  so  long.  They  knew  his  disinclination  to  en- 
gage unnecessarily  in  state  politics  \  but  of  his  readiness  to  devote 
e\QYy  thing  to  the  national  interest,  whenever  the  party  would  be 
ready  to  engage  in  it.  But  they  also  knew  that  he  beheld  with  con- 
tempt the  sacrifice  of  that  cause  in  pursuit  of  little  objects  of  self-inter- 
est ;  and  still  more,  the  surrender  of  it  to  conciliate  the  Adams  party. 


32 

His  dislike  to  the  coarse  ribaldry  of  the  paper,  indiscriminately  poured 
out  on  the  stale  and  city  authorities,  as  well  as  the  opposing  presiden- 
tial parties — bringing  the  then  Jackson  cause  into  disrepute,  and  re- 
ducing the  paper  to  a  state  of  loathsome  and  disgusting  degradation — 
was  also  known  to  its  wretclied  leaders.  That  he  should  excite  their 
jealousy  and  revenge,  neither  surprised  nor  alarmed  him, — but  he  did 
not  expect  that  he  was  to  be  sacrificed  by  having  the  people  ousted  of 
their  rights,  and  the  authority  of  the  party  usurped  by  a  half  o'  dozen 
intriguers,  under  the    imposing  appellation  of  a  legislative  convention. 

This  last  outrageous  proceeding  determined  that  gentleman  to  fath- 
om the  object  which  lay  at  the  bottom  of  the  intrigue.  The  measure 
was  not  without  its  difficulties.  The  leaders  did  not  dare  to  avow 
hostility  until  every  measure  was  in  train  to  insure  their  success. 
The  selection  of  electoral  candidates  was  the  last  act  of  the  drama, 
and  when  that  was  effected  they  felt  masters  of  the  game.  Until  then, 
they  were  profuse  in  their  protestations  of  regard  for  Col.  Orne  ;  but 
after  it,  they  no  longer  dissembled  their  hostility.  A  short  time,  how- 
ever, enabled  him  to  unravel  the  intrigue,  and  the  astonishment  it  ex- 
cited when  it  was  laid  bare  in  its  naked  deformity,  can  be  better  imag- 
ined by  the  community  than  exprf  ssed  by  the  writer. 

The  secret  was  obtained  from  Mr.  John  K.  Simpson,  a  goodly  mak- 
er of  beds,  coverlets  and  carpets,  and  the  candidate  for  elector  for 
the  DISTRICT  OF  SUFFOLK  !  It  was  apprehended  that  in  case  of  Gen. 
Jackson's  election,  the  public  sentiment  would  designate  Col.  Orne  as 
the  collector  of  the  port.  But  this  office  had  been  assigned  by  the 
leaders  of  the  Statesman,  to  Mr.  David  Ilenshaiv,  another  candidate  for 
the  office  of  elector,  for  the  aviiole  commoivwealth  !  But  the  rea- 
son is  still  more  surprising.  The  party  objected  to  Col.  Orne,  as  Mr. 
Simpson  avowed,  because  he  did  not  proffer,  beforehand,  to  the 
party,  in  the  event  of  his  success,  the  disposition  of  the  subordinate 
offices  in  the  custom  house,— that  he  did  not  promise  offices  to  others, 
if  he  should  obtain  one  himself — that  he  had  too  much  independence 
of  character  to  be  controlled  by  the  leaders  of  the  Statesman  !    !    ! 

The  party  were  determined  to  have,  Mr.  Simpson  said,  a  collector 
who  would  have  no  will  of  his  own,  and  who,  when  his /m/uZs  hand- 
ed him  a  list  of  the  persons  to  be  re3I0ved,  and  of  otuers  to  be 
APPOINTED  in  their  places,  should  make  the  removals  and  appointments, 
WITHOUT  ASKING  A  QUESTION! — And  he  soon  further  explained  whom 
he  meant,  by  the  '^friends''^  of  the  collector.  He,  Mr.  Simpson,  him- 
self, he  said,  was  the  only  man,  being  totally  disinterested,  who  was 
competent  to  judge  what  Jackson  men  ought  to  be  appointed  ;  and 
he  alone  was  the  man  to  make  out  the  list  which  the  collector 
should  receive  for  his  implicit  guide  !  Mr.  Nathaniel  Greene,  he  said, 
was  to  be  appointed  postmaster,  and,  I  think,  Mr.  Dunlap,  district  at- 
torney, while  Mr.  David  Hensliaw  was  their  man  for  collector.  He, 
Col.  Orne,  might  have  the  7iav(d  office^  if  he  would  take  it,  but  he  must 
then,  instantcr,  decide  ;  for  if  he  would  not  agree  to  it  then,  he  should 
not  have  it  at  all,  nor  any  other  appointment.  It  is  needless  to  re- 
mark, that  Col.  Orne    treated  the  proposition  with   as  much  contempt 


33 

as  he  felt  for  the  maker  of  it,  and  thenceforth  refused  further  inter- 
course with  the  man. 

Two  inquiries  will  naturally  arise  from  this  astonishing  disclosure. 
Did  Mr.  Simpson  speak  the  sentiments  of  the  Statesman  partv,  and 
did  Mr.  Henshaw  know  the  motives  for  supporting  him  for  the  office  ? 
The  leaders  of  this  party  were  soon  afterwards  invited  to  meet  with 
other  friends  of  Jackson,  all  of  whom  had,  until  then,  acted  with  the 
Statesman  in  supporting  their  presidential  candidate.  Those  state- 
ments were  openly  made  by  Col.  Orne,  in  presence  of  Mr.  Simpson, 
and  one  or  two  brothers  of  Mr.  Henshaw,  besides  many  warm  per- 
sona] friends.  Mr.  Simpson  was  called  upon  to  deny  or  confirm  the 
statement,  but  he  did  not  deny  it.  The  lacts  became  notorious  to  the 
Jackson  party.  The  motive  for  selecting  those  gentlemen  for  electors, 
and  taking  the  right    from   the  people,  now    became  apparent.     '•  We 

must  give  to  our  candidates  for  office  the  character  of  party  leaders 

we  must  center  upon  them  all  the  influence  and  weight  in  our 
power — the  country  must  be  made  to  believe  that  they  arein  fact  the 
chief  friends  of  General  Jackson — the  other  candidates  for  electors, 
being  also  selected  by  our  means,  will  act  in  concert  with  our  own. 
and  aid  our  object.  The  whole  organization  of  the  Jackson  party  will 
be  under  our  control,  and  the  offices  will  be  ours."  Such  was  the  art- 
ful policy  which  this  discussion  elicited.  And  the  m.overs  were  not 
disappointed — they  did  obtain  the  offices,  and  now  hold  them,  proud 
monuments  of  the  success  of  political  intrigue.  Subsequent  circum- 
stances developed  the  ramifications  of  the  scheme,  and  the  many  men 
who  had  received  promises  of  subordinate  appointments  could  be  point- 
ed out  familiarly  in  the  streets.  Here  was  the  invincible  bond  of  union 
amongst  the  Statesman  party,  which  made  men  so  devoted  to  one 
another — so  tenacious  of  retaining  accidental  advantages — so  hostile 
to  any  increase  of  the  party,  and  so  jealous  of  the  rest  of  Gen.  Jack- 
son's supporters.  Here  was  the  theme  of  discord,  and  the  source 
of  division. 

Who  can  wonder  that  the  indignation  of  the  respectable  members  of 
the  party  was  excited  .''  Mr.  Simpson  quailed  under  it,  and  bego-ed  to 
be  forgiven.  Mr.  Henshaw  disavowed,  in  the  most  solemn  manner, 
that  he  was  a  candidate  for  the  office,  and  pledged  himself  he  would 
not  accept  it,  if  it  should  be  offered  him.  The  renunciation 
of  personal  objects  at  length  soothed  the  irritated  feelings  of  the  par- 
ty, and  gave  a  promise  of  returning  harmony.  It  was  decided,  how- 
ever, to  be  essential  that  another  paper  should  be  established  to  guard 
against  further  danger  from  monopoly.  The  Jackson  Kepublican 
therefore  soon  came  into  being,  and  ranked  among  its  sincere  friends 
the  most  respectable  of  those  who  had  been  hitherto  active  in  the 
Statesman  organization.  The  electoral  ticket,  objectionable  as  it 
was,  was  supported  by  the  whole  body  of  the  Jackson  republicans. 
They  made  the  sacrifice  on  the  altar  of  party  concord.  They  em- 
braced it  as  the  only  alternative  to  the  division  of  the  party.  And 
yet  Mr.  Henshaw  is  collector,  Mr.  Greene  post  master,  and  Mr.  Dun- 
lap  district  attorney.     And  many  have   received   appointments  in  the 


34 

custom  house,  whose  designation  to  such  trusts  was  familiarly  known 
long  betbre  Gen.  Jackson  was  chosen  to  be  president.  But,  on  a 
member  of  the  Jackson  republican  party,  not  a  trust  has  been  confer- 
red. Nay,  they  have  shared  worse  even  than  the  friends  of  Mr.  Ad- 
ams ;  for  many,  very  many  of  these  have  been  retained,  but  Jackson 
republicans  have  been  dismissed  from   the   offices  they  actually  filled. 

But  does  Mr.  Simpson  exercise  a  control  over  appointments  in  the 
custom  house — does  any  thing  shackle  Mr.  Henshaw  in  discharge  of 
the  most  important  duties  entrusted  to  his  care  ?  The  writer  will,  for 
the  present,  leave  these  questions  to  be  answered  by  others  who  have 
better  means  of  judging  than  himself  He  knows  little  of  the  man- 
agement of  the  Statesman  party  now — he  makes  no  inquiries,  and  con- 
cerns himself  as  little  upon  the  subject  as  perhaps  any  other  man  in 
the  community.  But  of  those  who  have  knowledge  on  the  subject,  I 
will  ask  one  or  two  questions. 

Have  any,  and  if  so,  how  many  of  Mr.  Simpson's  relations,  and 
family  connexions,  received  appointments  in  the  custom  house  .'* 

Were  they  men  otherwise  entitled  to  the  appointments  .''  what  ser- 
vices have  they  rendered  to  the  Jackson  cause,  and  how  long  have 
they  been  members  of  the  party  ^ 

Is  Mr.  Simpson  understood  to  have  great  influence  in  these  ap- 
pointments— is  he  much  courted  for  his  influence — is  it  successful 
when  exerted  ? 

But  one  circumstance  has  been  mentioned  to  me,  on  such  respect- 
able authority  that  I  cannot,  if  I  would,  view  it  as  calumnious.  I  do 
not  vouch  for  its  truth — I  do  not  know  it — but  it  is  impossible  to  refuse 
to  attach  to  it  some  degree  of  credit,  from  the  respectable  channel 
through  which  it  reaches  me. 

Every  one  here  knows  what  a  degree  of  excitement  has  been  pro- 
duced among  our  best  citizens  by  the  indiscriminate  proscriptions  at 
the  custom  house,  and  how  exceedingly  injurious  they  have  been 
to  the  popularity  of  the  administration.  A  gentleman  who  is  said  to 
have  been  friendly  to  Mr.  IJenshaw,  Mr.  Robert  G.  Shaw,  it  is  re- 
ported, remonstrated  with  him  against  such  impolitic  changes.  Tlie 
same  rumor  also  avers  that  Mr.  Ilenshaw  replied  in  substance,  "  that 
the  removal  of  so  many  men  was  like  cutting  off  his  right  arm — but  he 
was  coinpelled  to  it,  he  could  not  help  it."  If  this  be  a  mistake,  it  can 
be  easily  corrected,  and  no  one  will  more  readily  contradict  it  than  the 
writer.  But  if  it  be  true,  what  is  the  nature  of  the  compulsion — why 
cannot  Mr.  Henshaw  help  it  ^ 

The  proscription  of  Col.  Orne  was  successful — the  motive  of  it  was 
avowed.  He  would  not  hold  the  office  in  trust  for  the  benefit  of  oth- 
ers— he  would  not  be  controlled  by  irresponsible  men  in  the  discharge 
of  its  duties.  It  is  a  trust  of  immense  importance  to  the  people  of  the 
nation — the  correct  discharge  of  its  duties  deeply  atfects  the  honor  of 
the  government.  Conicrrcd  by  the  authority  of  tlie  president,  and 
sanctioned  by  the  great  council  of  the  nation,  the  senate  of  the  United 
States,  tiiere  is  a  deep  responsibility  to  them  as  to  the  manner  in  which 
its  duties  shall  be  performed.     The  solenmity  of  an  oath  is  also  added 


35 


/ 


to  the  other  sacred  sources  from  whence  the  obligation  of  faithfulness 
is  derived.  Can  a  man  be  fit  for  such  a  trust  who  surrenders  up,  to 
the  guidance  of  others,  that  judgment,  and  that  discretion,  for  which 
the  highest  authorities  of  the  nation  have  confided  the  great  interests 
to  his  hands  ?  Is  independence  of  character,  and  stern  integrity,  of 
no  consequence  ?  Who  is  the  man  who  would  not  rather  have  failed, 
with  Col.  Orne,  if  opposed  for  such  a  cause,  than  have  obtained  this 
important  post  at  the  expense  of  his  independence  ? 

COLUMBUS. 


COLUMBUS,  NO.  IX. 

The  publication  of  the  Jackson  Republican  alarmed,  excessively, 
the  managers  of  the  Statesman.  Possessing  the  entire  control  of  that 
paper,  and  having  completed  every  arrangement  for  the  campaign  by 
which  the  whole  merit  of  the  contest,  among  us,  would  be  ascribed  to 
them,  they  saw,  in  imagination,  the  golden  boon  of  office  within  their 
grasp,  if  the  struggle  should  terminate  in  favor  of  our  candidate.  Their 
secret  manoeuvering  had  been  so  far  eminently  successful  ;  and  they 
chuckled,  exultingly,  that  no  chance  to  encounter  them  remained  to 
their  victims.  The  mask  was  now  thrown  off,  and  the  hostility  which 
had  hitherto  governed  them  in  secret,  was  openly  avowed.  Th^ 
Statesman,  of  course,  would  not  expose  their  duplicity,  and  an  expo- 
sure in  any  other  paper  would  be  readily  ascribed  to  the  malice  of 
political  opposition.  The  establishment  of  another  Jackson  paper  was 
a  contingency  they  had  not  foreseen,  and  it  carried  dismay  and  con- 
sternation into  their  corrupt  ranks.  They  were  therefore  determined 
to  oppose  it  with  every  nerve,  and  at  the  hazard  of  every  consequence. 

And  yet  the  ground  of  their  opposition,  and  the  manner  in  which  it 
should  be  manifested,  gave  them  great  perplexity.  Why  should  a 
friend  of  Jackson  oppose  an  effort  in  his  favor  .''  Why  should  his  party 
try  to  prevent  its  own  increase  .''  What  exclusive  right  had  one  portion 
of  his  friends  to  advocate  his  election,  more  than  another  }  Why  should 
a  number  of  newspapers  in  his  favor  be  less  propitious  to  his  cause 
than  one  ?  Their  reason,  that  it  might  lesson  their  supposed  exclusive 
pretensions  to  office,  was  one  which  would  be  received  with  as  little 
favor  Dy  the  party,  as  it  was  destitute  of  merit.  The  sordid  selfish- 
ness of  the  motive,  too,  was  one  which  would  suffuse  their  faces  with 
the  blush  of  shame,  if  that  emotion  could  be  generated  in  their  bosoms; 
— or,  at  all  events,  make  them  shy  of  its  avowal.  To  oppose  openly, 
therefore,  an  effort  in  favor  of  Jackson  was  out  of  the  question,  for  it 
would  necessarily  lead  to  an  exposure  of  their  conduct  ; — resort  was 
therefore  had  to  a  course  more  consistent  with  their  safety,  their  hab- 
its, and  character.  The  paper  and  its  friends  might  be  secretly  de- 
nounced, where  the  slander  could  not  be  followed  and  refuted.  Hon- 
est but  prejudiced  democrats  were  to  be  alarmed  with  the  story  that  it 
was  a  federal  paper  in  disguise,  secretly  in  the  interests  of  the  Hart- 
ford Convention.     The  federal  friends  of  Jackson  were  informed  that 


56 

its  object  was  a  division  of  the  Jackson  party — although  its  avowed  and 
ostensible  motive  was  an  union  among  the  friends  of  Gen.  Jackson, 
retrardless  of  former  ditferences  :  and  the  party  collectively  was  told 
that  the  friends  of  the  Jackson  RepubHcan  were  new  men,  fence  men 
and  trimmers,  who  came  in,  after  the  heat  and  burden  of  the  day  were 
over,  to  dispute  the  services  of  those  who  had  been,  since  the  first 
hour,  laboring  in  the  vineyard.  The  reputation  of  the  Statesman,  as  a 
Jackson  paper,  would  procure  credit  for  its  assertions  by  those  who 
did  not  know  its  character,  and  of  course,  for  the  private  assurances  of 
those  uho  were  known  to  be  its  editors,  or  avowed  to  be  its  friends  ; 
while  its  abstaining  from  an  open  denunciation  would  be  ascribed  to  its 
forbearance,  and  generous  sacrifices  for  the  common  good. 

There  are  men,  and  abundance  of  men  too,  who  never  imagine  that 
to  know  the  merits  of  a  controversy  it  is  of  any  importance  to  hear  more 
than  one  side.  Tl^re  are  those  who  never  suspect  that  private  and 
selfish  purposes  can  influence  men  in  their  public  conduct,  or  that  in- 
trio"ue  can  ever  concern  itself  with  the  affairs  of  politics.  The  want  of 
competition,  such  men  cannot  dream  to  be  productive,  frequently,  of 
injury  to  a  party  ;  they  consider  a  monopoly  of  the  press  as  unsuscep- 
tible of  being  applied  to  selfish  purposes,  or  to  any  thing  but  patriotic 
ends,  and  the  public  good.  For  them  to  believe  a  story,  it  was  enough 
for  the  acknowledged  friends  of  the  Statesman  to  tell  it,  although  it 
ascribed  innocence  to  themselves,  and  depravity  to  their  opponents. 
The  fair  mind,  the  sagacious  politician,  and  the  experienced  in  politi- 
cal intrigues,  ^vould  suspect,  at  oflce,  that  in  a  controversy  there  may 
be  wrong  on  both  sides,  and,  by  a  bare  possibility,  fault  exclusively  on 
the  side  of  the  informer.  And  that  the  information  was  even  more  lia- 
ble to  suspicion,  for  being  so  secretly  communicated  that  the  denoun- 
ced party  was  unable  to  reply  to  it.  These  stories  however  had  ef- 
fect, and  several  conductors  of  Jackson  newspapers  manifested  hostili- 
ty to  the  Jackson  Republican. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  conceive,  in  the  conducting  of  party  affairs, 
circumstances  more  trying  than  those  which  attended  the  political  birth 
of  the  new  paper.  The  rancorous  malignant  hostility  of  the  States- 
man managers  was  perfectly  well  known.  Their  unceasing  activity  to 
poison  the  friends  of  the  cause  against  us,  in  all  parts  of  the  Union,  by 
private  correspondence,  was  believed  on  sttong  circumstantial  evi- 
dence. Their  attempts  to  prevent  support  being  afforded  to  the  paper, 
were  ascertained  in  every  step  of  its  progress.  They  were  before  the 
public  as  candidates  of  the  party,  by  the  fruits  of  a  disgraceful  in- 
trigue. They  were  proclaimed  its  devoted  leaders  in  every  movement 
that  the  Statesman  could  giv^  rise  to.  They  were,  and  had  been,  ap- 
parently, in  possession  of  the  whole  field  of  services  and  merits.  Men 
who  were  not  familiar  with  the  aflairs  of  the  party,  knew  not  ihat  the 
friends  of  the  Jackson  Republican  had  been,  hitherto,  among  the 
principal  supporters  of  the  Statesman,  not  only  in  its  political  discus- 
sions, and  its  organized  party  efforts,  but  also  in  affording  it  pecuniary 
aid,  as  well  by  subscription,  as  by  loans.  The  Jackson  republican 
party  was  represented  as  a  new  party,  while  in  fact  it  was  only  a  part, 


37 

and  a  most  important  part  of  the  entire  Jackson  party,  which  had  col- 
lectively supported  the  Statesman,  until  the  paper  was  discovered  to 
be  the  organ,  and  instrument,  of  partial,  selfish,  and  mercenary  in- 
triguers. To  remain  silent  was  to  leave  to  the  Statesman,  exclusively, 
all  the  merit  of  the  common  sacrifices  and  services  in  the  Jackson 
cause.  It  was  a  division  of  the  common  stock  by  which  every  thing 
was  given  to  one  side  only,  while  the  other  must  begin  the  contest 
again,  with  nothing.  The  swarming  bees  carried  nothing  with  them 
to  the  new  hive,  and  the  fruits  of  common  and  devoted  labor  were  re- 
tained by  those  who  continued  in  the  old.  Silence  was  an  unequal 
game  for  the  Jackson  republicans,  and  one  very  dangerous  for  them  to 
j)layjt. — They  should  have  insisted  that  the  self  nominated  candidates 
should  be  withdrawn,  and  the  people  permitted  to  agree  upon  others. 
— They  should  have  called  for  an  entire  and  satisfactory  organization 
of  the  party.  They  should  have  exacted  from  the  wrong  doers  jus- 
tice, and  if  divisions  ensued,  the  responsibility  should  have  been  placed 
where  the  wrong  lay.  As  the  Statesman  was  no  longer  the  paper  of 
the  party,  its  support  should  have  been  left  exclusively  to  the  faction 
which  it  served. 

But  other  councils  prevailed.  The  union,  or  apparent  union  of  the 
party,  at  best  but  a  small  minority,  was  deemed  an  object  paramount, 
to  all  other  considerations.  Every  one  who  adhered  to  the  States- 
man, denounced  and  endeavored  to  destroy  the  Jackson  Republican, 
•while  not  a  subscription  was  withdrawn  from  the  former  paper,  by  the 
friends  of  the  other.  All  the  advantages  of  silence  were  on  the  side 
of  the  Statesman — all  the  prejudices  against  us  ;  while  the  publication 
of  the  truth  would  at  once  have  changed  the  balance.  The  power  of 
the  party,  in  the  eyles  of  the  nation,  was  given  up  to  them,  while  it  lay 
with  us  whether  they  should  retain  it,  or  surrender  it  up  to  those  from 
whom  they  had  unjustly  usurped  it.  To  endure  in  silence  such  wrongs, 
to  encounter  such  hazards  without  attempting  to  avert  them,  required 
a  degree  of  disinterestedness  and  self  denial  which  a  party  has  seldom, 
if  ever,  been  called  upon  to  manifest.  And,  yet  it  was  manifested,  no- 
bly, by  the  Jackson  republicans.  The  wrongs  were  endured,  the  sa- 
crifice was  made,  and  they  who  can  be  insensible  to  its  merits  are 
welcome  to  visit  us  with  renewed  injuries,  and  additional  indignities. 
For  the  harmony  of  the  Jackson  party  we  endured  if  all.  We  received 
the  blow,  in  Christian  meekness,  on  one  cheek,  and  turned  the  other  to 
the  aggressor.  They  took  from  us  our  coat,  and  we  gave  them  our 
cloak  also.  We  sat  an  example  of  forbearance  which  challenges  rival- 
ship,  and  may  well  defy  imitation.  Let  men  turn  over  the  columns  of 
the  Jackson  Republican,  and  then  say,  if  so  much  prudence,  discretion, 
and  forbearance  were  ever  before  manifested  amidst  the  discordant  in- 
terests of  a  divided  party.  We  made  no  allusions  to  the  subject  of  the 
discord — we  left  unassailed  the  usurped  acquisitions  of  our  mortal  foes 
— we  wrote  not  a  letter  to  answer  the  imputations  which  our  enemies 
were  pouring  like  torrents  on  our  head,  through  all  the  sections  ef  the 
country.  We  continued  our  subscriptions  to  that  profligate  paper,  and 
when  men  who  preferred  ours,  but  felt  unable  to  incur  the  expense  of 


38 

both,  manifested  a  willingness  to  drop  the  Statesman,  we  advised  them 
ao-ainst  it,  beinc  determined  that  our  efforts  should  not  interfere  with 
its  support.  INay,  more,  we  recognized  so  far  our,  apparently,  fellow 
laborers  in  the  cause,  that  we  noticed  the  vile  paper  itself,  and  repub- 
lished articles  from  its  columns,  And^  as  the  last  and  greatest  sacri- 
fice which  a  party  could  make,  we  gave  our  votes,  at  the  polls,  for  that 
most  detestable  list  of  electors,  selected  in  fraud,  and  with  the  avowed 
object  of  injuring  ourselves  and  our  cause. 

Such  sacrifices  can  only  be  made  by  a  party  conscious  of  the  high 
rectitude  of  its  purposes,  and  of  its  own  extensive  claims  to  the  public 
respect.     No  party  could  be  capable  of  such  sacrifices  but  one  of  an 
elevated  character,  and  the  Jackson    republican    party  could  proudly, 
compare,  in  the  respectability  of  its  elements,  and  in  the  high  and  hon- 
orable character  of  its  course,  with   any  which  was  ever    organized  in 
this  mighty  republic.     With  conscious  manliness  it  left  every  imputa- 
tion, and  every  slander,  to   be  answered  by   its  acts.     Like  that  of  the 
high  minded  Jefferson,  on  whose  devoted  head  the  torrents  of  calumny 
were  profusely  poured,  its  noblest  answer  was  its  life.     It  relied  on   its 
rectitude,  and  it  relied  not  in  vain.     The  whole  host  of  the  Statesman 
assailed  each  of  our  friends,  with  prayers,  imprecations   and  threats — 
they  promised  to  reward  treachery  to  us  with  the  offices  of  the  republic 
— they  threatened  to  visit  fidelity  with  proscription  and  persecution, — 
but  they  promised  and  threatened  in  vain.     Few  were  they  who  yield- 
ed to  seduction,  or  were  overcome  by  fear.     The  Jackson  Republicail 
went  on,  and  feeble  as  the  Jackson  party  was  thought  to  be,    a  hand- 
some encouragement,  for  the  time,  was  found  for  two  papers,  where  it 
was  apprehended  there  was  insufficient   for  one.     A  new  impulse  was 
given  to  the  public  mind,  and  the  Statesman  paper,  instead  of  losing, 
was  found,  as  its  publishers  acknowledged,  to  be  a  gainer  by  the  competi- 
tion.    The  fidelity  of  the  Jackson  republican  party   was  unassailable, 
for  the  strongest  of  possible  reasons, — it  was  not  a  party  of  office  seekers, 
and  had  no  interests  for  hopes  and  fears,  promises  and  threats,  to  ac- 
tion ;    while  the  Statesman  party  was  made    up    almost    exclusively 
from  the  lowest  ranks  of  our  people,  and  of  those  who  aimed  to  ac- 
quire a  personal  benefit  by  the  contest.      Let  the  names  of  those  men 
appear  who  were  residents  in  this    city,  and  dined  with   the    States- 
man party  in  the  Washington    gardens,   and  I  will  hazard   any  thing 
on  the  fact,   that  not  fitly    could   be    found  in  the  whole  number  who 
have  not  been  applicants  for  office  since  the  election  of  the  president ; 
and  I  will  encounter  an  equal  hazard,  that  of  the  party  who  filled,  on 
the  same  occasion,  Fanueil  Hall,  there  were  not  twenty  who  were,   or 
under  any  circumstances,  intended  to  be,  applicants.       They  support- 
ed the  cause  from  an  honest  preference  of  its  candidate,  for  the  hon- 
or of  the  country,   and  for  the   security   of  its    republican   institutions. 
These  were  the  elements,  and  the  only  elements,  which  could   form  a 
party  capable   of  doing  what  they  did,  forbearing   as  they  forbore,   or 
enduring  what  they  suffered. 

One  of  the   first  and   most   happy  effects  of  the  project  of  the  new 
paper,  was  a  willingness  on  the  part  of  Gen.  Jackson's  friends,  with- 


39 

out  regard  to  old  party  lines,  to  unite  in  his  support.  Among  those 
who  had  once  been  members  of  the  federal  party,  and  still  more 
among  those  who  had  come  of  age  since  the  old  party  contest  had  ter- 
minated, there  were  many  men,  including  some  of  the  most  respected 
in  the  community,  and  of  the  very  highest  grade  of  character,  who 
were  in  favor  of  Gen.  Jackson.  They  had  refused,  constantly,  to 
act  with  the  Statesman  party,  and  that  gentlemanly  print  had  impu- 
ted the  refusal,  and  gained  some  belief  in  the  imputation,  to  an  unwil- 
lingness to  act  on  republican  grounds  with  the  great  Jackson  party. 
Their  refusal,  however,  arose  altogether  from  a  different  motive.  The 
low  and  scurrilous  character  of  that  print,  and  the  violent  and  abusive 
course  of  its  supporters,  were  the  only  obstacle.  The  Statesman  par- 
ty did  every  thing  it  could,  privately,  to  court  their  support.  They  as- 
cribed the  intemperance  of  the  language  of  the  paper  to  pohcy,  direc- 
ted, not  to  this  commonwealth,  but  to  Maine  and  New  Hampshire, 
where  the  contest,  they  said,  was  of  a  democratic  character.  And 
though  it  was  not  a  course  adapted  to  the  circumstances  of  this  state, 
yet  as  any  course  would  fail  to  gain  us  the  vote  of  Massachusetts, 
they  must  regard  exclusively  the  policy  best  suited  to  those  sfates. 
The  denunciation  of  federalism  they  reconciled  with  the  best  personal 
feelings  towards  the  federal  friends  of  Gen.  Jackson  amono-  us  and 
avowed  their  willingness  to  act  in  harmony  with  them  when  the  policy 
of  their  course  had  attained  its  object.  In  this  spirit  Mr.  Francis  Bay- 
lies, Gen.  Lyman  and  others,  were  invited  to  Faneuil  Hall,  at  the  8th 
of  January  celebration,  in  1823,  and  the  former  gentleman  actually  at- 
tended. A  Jackson  federalist  was  also  put  on  their  central  commit- 
tee for  the  state,  when  the  farce  of  a  legislative  convention  was  gotten 
up.  A  Jackson  federalist,  by  their  aid^has  been  appointed  to  the  col- 
lectorship  of  Newburyport,  and  another  offered  an  inspectorship  un- 
der the  collector  in  Boston.  It  was  not  Jackson  federalism  they 'fear- 
ed, but  the  rivalship  of  Jackson  federalists — and  they. refused  to  ac- 
knowledge the  party  character  of  these  gentlemen,  unless  they  would 
act  in  subordination  to  themselves.  They  feared  the  standing  of  men 
not  their  politics,  and  welcomed  every  follo?ver,  of  whatever'' party. he 
might  be,  but  were  jealous  of  all  equals  or  leaders. 

The  federal  friends  of  Jackson  had  too  much  respect  for  themselves 
to  prevent  the  possibility  of  their  hailing  under  the  Statesman.  With 
a  perfect  disposition  to  make  common  cause  with  its  friends,  they 
could  acknowledge  no  leaders  but  men  of  a  different  grade  of  charac- 
ter. They  had  suffered  long,  and  endured  much,  for  want  of  a  news- 
paper to  represent  their  views.  They  had  made,  in  their  zeal  for  the 
cause,  liberal  and  even  munificent  offers  to  an  established  federal  pa- 
per, to  induce  it  to  come  out  for  their  presidential  candidate.  These 
efforts  were,  however,  unsuccessful.  They  supported  the  party  with 
unshaken  constancy,  and  untiring  zeal  ;  but  supported  it,  like  many 
others,  aloof  from  the  party  who  acted  with  the  Statesman.  When  the 
Jackson  Republican  was  established,  they  afforded  it,  most  cheerfully, 
their  support ;  and  by  resolutions  adopted  in  the  most  public  manner, 
announced    their  adhesion  to  the  republican  party.     Their  self   re- 


40 

gpect,  and  the  character  of  their  republican  associates,  no  longer  kept 
them  aloof ;  and  they  came  out,  like  men,  for  the  republican  candi- 
date. The  Statesman  immediately  began  to  denounce  the  federal 
friends  of  the  President,  and — it  is  almost  incredible,  and  while  I  state 
it  emotions  of  disgust  almost  dash  the  pen  from  my  unwilling  hand — 
there  were  a  few  tederalists,  candidates  for  appointments,  who  adher- 
ed to  the  Statesman  party,  and  joined  in  the  denunciation  of  them- 
selves. If  there  be  a  class  of  men  whose  conduct  defies  language 
to  convey  the  disgust  which  it  excites  in  our  bosom,  it  is  those  merce- 
nary apostates,  who  seek  to  acquire  an  office  by  loading  their  past  life 
with  infamy. 

•  But,  thank  Heaven,  the  numbers  of  such  men  were  few  !  The 
great  mass  acted  with  the  Jackson  Republican,  shared  its  labors,  en- 
dured its  sacrifices,  and  participate  in  its  fate.  Neither  threats,  nor 
seductions,  nor  persecutions,  can  seperate  them  from  honorable  asso- 
ciates. They  would  hare  been  happier  in  our  success,  but  they  re- 
main firm  and  inflexibly  faithful  in  our  misfortunes.  They  submit  to 
their  fate  vyith  a  fortitude  which  awakens  our  admiration.  Excellent 
men**! — the  day  may  yet  come  when  you  will  cease  to  stand  as  monu- 
ments to  warn  poltical  partisans,  that  it  is  not  always  that  merit  com- 
mands success,  or  that  lofty  rectitude  can  escape  the  machinations  of 
unprincipled  intriguers.  COLUMBUS. 


COLUMBUS,   NO.  X. 

DUFF    GREEN. 

The  course  of  events  now  brings  forward  a  character  which  presents 
some  extraordinary  claims  to  our  notice.  Duff'  Green  stands  in  that 
relation  to  the  present  administration  that,  as  the  gallant  Stark  said  to 
his  troops  while  pointing  to  the  enemy,  they  must  kill  him,  or  he  will  kill 
them.  Before  I  proceed,  however,  to  a  particular  notice  of  the  conduct 
of  this  gentleman  towards  our  political  friends,  I  shall  pause,  one  mo- 
ment, to  consider  his  relation  to  the  party,  his  services  to,  and  his 
standing  in  it. 

The  assertions  regarding  Duff*  Green's  standing  with  the  govern- 
ment are  of  the  most  various  character  ;  the  oppo-ition  presses  insist 
upon  it  that  his  influence  is  almost  unbounded,  while  the  friends  of  the 
president  deny  him  any  influence,  and  insist  that  the  government  re- 
gard him  with  a  disgust  almost  approaching  to  abhorence.  The  alle- 
gation of  his  influence  is  undoubtedly  meant  as  the  severest  reproach 
which  can  be  made  of  the  president,  and  the  sensitiveness  of  the  Jack- 
son party  under  it,  and  their  warmth  in  repelling  it,  show  that  they 
view  it  as  a  libel  of  a  most  pernicious  tendency.  These  apparently 
opposite  positions  are  to  be  received  with  caution,  and,  when  properly 
modified,  they  are  not  only  reconcileable,  but  probably  are,  or  rather 
have  been,  true. 

I  am  perfectly  satisfied  that  it  is  the  determination  of  the  president 
to  confine  Mr.  Green  to  his  proper  pursuits — to  repel  his  interference 


41 

With  the  business  of  the  cabinet,  and  to  discountenance  his  intermed- 
dling with  local  appointments.  There'is  no  man  in  the  country  whose 
character  and  feelings  would  sooner  throw  off  dictation,  or  an  attempt 
at  dictation  ;  or  repel  a  familiar  approach  from  so  objectionable  a 
quarter.  I  am  also  inclined  to  believe,  though  I  am  not  certain  of  the 
fact,  that  the  president's  opinion  of  DufT  Green  is  very  far  from  being 
favorable.  But  the  assertion  that  Duff  Green  has  li^retofore  had  no 
influence,  or  very  little  influence,  is  one  exceedingly  difficult  to  be  re- 
conciled with  well  known  facts  ;  and  in  spite  of  my  ardent  wish  it 
were  so,  I  cannot  credit  it.  That  he  has  had  no  direct  influence  with  the 
president,  I  really  believe,  but  that  he  has  had  some,  nay  an  almost 
preponderating  influence  with  some  members  of  the  government  and 
has  reached  the  president  through  his  constitutional  advisers,  but  too 
effectually,  is  in  the  highest  degree  probable.  But  intrigue  is  danger- 
ous only  while  it  tracks  its  way  in  darkness — the  light  that  breaks  on 
its  path  is  a  barrier  to  its  progress.  Duff^  Green  has  accomplished 
much  heretofore,  but  recent  circumstances  strongly  indicate  that  the 
reptile  is  now  scotched. 

As  events  which  he,  in  conjunction  with  others,  has  had  an  active 
share  in  effecting,  I  will  mention  a  few — The  removal  of  Mr.  M'Lean 
from  the  post  office,  a  measure  which  notwithstanding  the  favorable  es- 
timate of  the  character  of  the  incumbent,  has  been  viewed  by  the 
whole  Jackson  party  with  profound  regret.  In  Duff*  Green's  recent 
visit  to  Boston,  he  boasted  with  admirable  complacency  that  the  credit 
of  this  measure  was  due  entirely  to  him. 

The  appointment  of  Isaac  Hill  to  be  a  comptroller — a  measure  deep- 
ly injurious  to  the  party,  and  especially  to  our  New  England  inter- 
ests. 

The  disappointment  of  the  wishes  of  an  immense  proportion  of  the 
Jackson  party  (the  original  Jackson  party)  of  Pennsylvania,  in  regard 
to  Mr.  Baldwin,  and  the  defeat  of  the  expected  nomination  of  Gen. 
Barnard  as  governor  of  that  state.  The  Jackson  party  in  Pennsylva- 
nia, I  am  respectably  informed,  regard  any  connexion  of  such  a  man 
as  Duff'  Green  with  the  government,  as  one  of  the  severest  trials  which 
their  fidelity  can  be  taxed  to  endure.     //  ivill  be  apparent  before  long. 

The  policy,  on  every  other  ground  inexplicable,  of  the  government 
towards  the  Jackson-  republican  party  of  this  state.  And",  on  this  point, 
the  facts  are  remarkable.  Immediately  after  the  result  of  the  election 
was  known,  Duff"  Green  sought  a  quarrel  with  the  Jackson  republican, 
(his  motives  will  soon  be  adverted  to,)  and  proclaimed  that  the  party 
should  not  be  recognized  by  the  government,  but  should  be  driven  in- 
to the  opposition.  It  has  not  been  recognized  by  the  government,  and 
though  it  be  not  in  opposition,  no  measure  has  been  left  undone  which 
Duff*  Green  could  effect,  or  influence,  to  place  it  there. 

As  early  as  January  last,  long  before  Gen.  Jackson  reached  Wash- 
ington— long  before  his  cabinet  was  anticipated — Duff  Green  proclaim- 
ed, through  the  Telegraph,  that  Col.  Orne  should  receive  no  appoint- 
ment under  this  administration.  He  has  received  none,  although  pre- 
sented as  a  candidate  by  almost  every   respectable  supporter  j^f  the 


42 

president  in  this  state,  and  supported  by  many  of  the  highest  and  most 
influential  members  of  the  Adams  party.  He  was  the  candidate,  and 
the  only  candidate,  of  the  Jackson  republican  party — a  party  respect- 
able in  numbers,  and  as  respectable  in  standing  and  character,  as  any 
party  that  was  ever  formed  in  this  commonwealth.  But  Duff  Green 
determined  that  the  partij  should  be  destroyed^. 

Before  Gen.  Jackson  reached  Washington,  Duff  Green  pledged 
himself  to  support  Mr.  Dunlap  as  district  attorney,  Mr.  Green  as  posi 
master,  and  Mr.  Henshaw  as  collector  ;  and  they  have  all  been  ap- 
pointed. The  means  by  which  he  has  effected  his  object  I  do  not 
know,  and  I  cannot  comprehend — but  he  has  succeeded,  in  spite'of  the 
president's  known  determination  to  keep  Duff  Green  from  meddling 
with  such  subjects. 

For  now  nearly  one  year  he  has  denounced  the  Jackson  republican 
party,  and  the  Jackson  republican  paper,  united,  as  it  now  is,  with 
the  Bulletin.  He  has  endeavored  to  interrupt  confidence  between  that 
party  and  the  government — and  has  succeeded.  A  confidential  inter- 
course has  not  been  kept  up.  The  party  have  felt  their  wrongs — 
they  have  looked  with  confidence  to  the  president  for  redress — and 
they  still  look.  Duff  Green,  is  at  the  bottom  of  this  mischief  The 
wretch  has  taken  advantage  of  the  determination  of  the  party  to  bear 
every  thinaj  rather  than  incur  the  risk  of  a  schism.  For  a  year  he  has 
denounced  the  party,  its  candidates,  and  its  paper.  We  have  borne  it 
in  silence — endured,  meekly,  his  contumely  and  his  slander — and  yet 
despised  him  as  heartily  during  the  whole  time,  as  we  despise  him  now. 
But  the  power  of  endurance  is  limited — there  is  a  "  drop  which  will 
make  the  waters  of  bitterness  overflow,"  and  he  has  poured  it  into  our 
cup.     Let  him  now  taste  them  himself 

The  election  of  the  president  by  an  overwhelming  vote,  gave  Duff 
Green  such  confidence  in  his  strength,  that  he  was  willing  to  spare  a 
large  portion  of  the  president's  friends — yet,  as  long  as  the  contest 
was  doubtful,  or  the  strength  of  the  party  uncertain,  he  invoked  their 
forbearance  by  every  motive  of  party  discipline,  or  patriotism.  Before 
the  administration  was  fairlv  in  office,  he  be^an  to  electioneer  for  Mr. 
Calhoun,  and  to  bargain  with  one  portion  of  the  friends  of  Geni  Jack- 
son to  effect  the  downfall  of  another.  His  object  has  been  to  sow  dis- 
sension, and  effect  disunion.  He  insults  the  president,  treats  his  cab- 
inet with  rudeness,  and  attempts  to  dictate  to  the  representatives  of  the 
people.  He  wields  the  great  engine  which  has  been  put  into  his 
hands,  against  the  congress  which  placed  it  there,  the  governriient 
which  gave  it  authority,  and  the  party  who  support  it.  He  has  aban- 
doned the  Jackson  cause  to  take  up  that  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  and  strives 
to  destroy  the  present  party  to  build  up  another.  He  is  ruining  the 
party  wliich  made  him,  and  u'ill  ruin  the  candidate  he  supports. 

Duff  Green  obtained,  it  is  well  known,  a  sufficient  number  of  votes 
to  procure  the  printing  of  congress.  This  might  imply  some  degree 
of  confidence  on  the  part  of  the  Jackson  party,  in  his  talents  or  char- 
acter. I,  however,  am  satisfied  that  such  an  implication  would  be  at 
war  with  the    fact,  and   would    do  gross  injustice  to  the  high  minded 


43 

leaders  of  the  Jackson  party.  The  writer  is  personally  acquainted 
with  many  members  both  of  the  seiiate  and  house  of  representatives, 
who  were  supporters  of  General  Jackson,  and  who  stand,  in  the  public 
estimation,  second  to  none  among  his  friends.  These  men  spoke  of 
DuiT  Green  without  reserve.  Their  detestation  of  him  was  beyond 
any  thing  I  had  ever  known  of  the  feelings  of  statesmen  towards  a  par- 
ty printer.  The  Journal,  or  Intelligencer,  at  Washington,  do  not  speak 
of  Duff  Green  witli  half  the  contempt  and  abhorence,  that  was  open- 
ly manifested  by  the  most  eminent  Jackson  men  in  congress.  "  I 
shall  vote  for  that  contemptible  man  to  be  printer,"  said  they,  <'  as  a 
party  act— but  never  before  have  I  been  called  upon  to  offer,  on  the 
altar  of  party,  a  sacrifice  so  revolting  to  my  feelino-s." 

The  public  however  would  naturally  ask,  why  not  select  some  other 
party  printer  instead  of  Duff  Green  ?  The  answer  is,  he  was  without 
a  competitor.  The  most  ardent,  and,  to  the  parties,  the  most  gene- 
rous and  honorable  efforts,  were  made  by  some  distinguished  support- 
ers of  the  president,  to  establish  at  Washington  a  respectable  and  dig- 
nified Jackson  print.  A  large  annual  sum  was  proposed  by  a  few  per- 
sons, to  be  guaranteed,  to  a  proper  editor,  out  of  their  private  estate—^ 
circumstance  which  establishes  as  well  their  liberality  of  feelings,  as 
their  sense  of  the  importance  and  necessity  of  the  project.  These  ef- 
forts however  were  unsuccessful  ;  several  who  were  properly  quali- 
fied for  the  object  declined  the  proposal,  and  among  others,  the  editor 
of  the  Richmond  Enquirer.  "We  could  obtain,  sir,"  said  they  "no 
decent  editor  to  commence  the  enterprise,  or  we  should  not  have  been 
left,  at  this  hour,  with  so  frail  a  dependance  as  Gen.  Green.  We  must 
vote  for  him  as  printer,  and  try  the  experiment,  therefore  ;  but  we 
tremble  with  apprehensions  that  he  will  destroy  the  party." 

Some  would  naturally  ascribe  his  election  to  a  feeling  of  gratitude 
— to  a  favorable  estimate  of  his  services  in  the  presidential  canvass. 
This  however  was  not  the  fact,  for  the  leading  friends  of  the  president 
had  very  unfavorable  impressions  of  the  value  of  Gen.  Green's  efforts. 
"  I  am  satisfied,"  said  a  western  senator,  "  that  Duff  Green's  paper 
has  done  our  cause  essential  injury.  When  I  arrived  in  Washington 
I  found  the  sentiments  of  many  to  differ  from  me,  and  to  ascribe  some 
service  to  the  Telegraph.  But  on  inquiry  I  found  every  one  of  these 
gentlemen  satisfied,  in  regard  to  their  own  sections,  that  the  scurrilous, 
violent  spirit  of  the  paper,  and  the  unfavorable  estimate  formed  of  the 
character  of  its  editor,  really  did  the  cause  an  injury.  But  they  insist- 
ed he  had  done  service  in  the  west.  But  the  west  was  precisely  the 
point  where  the  Telegraph  would  be  the  least  serviceable.  Our  people 
know  Duff  Green  too  well.  Unpopular  as  the  National  Intelligencer 
is  among  the  friends  of  Jackson,  the  western  people  regard  it  with  a 
respect  v/hich  they  withhold  from  the  Telegraph.  In  our  public  ad- 
dresses we  could  not  cite  the  Telegraph  as  authority,  without  its  being 
almost  universally  hissed." 

The  government  press  at  Washington  is   the    natural   centre  of  the 
party,  and  is,  or  ought  to  be,  the  medium   of  intercourse  between  all 
the  sections  of  the  union.     To  attain  its  essential  objects,  the  charac- 
6 


.  44 

ter  it  maintains  must  be  decidedly  national ;  and  it  must  avoid,  with 
scrupulous  care  and  delicacy,  local  and  sectional  differences  among 
the  common  members  of  the  party.  The  public  printer  should  shun 
the  very  suspicion  of  meddling  with  local  appointments,  as  a  subject 
upon  which  he  cannot  be  well  informed,  and  which  the  local  sentiment 
will  regulate,  much  more  wisely,  for  its  own,  and  for  the  general  good. 
Above  all,  the  integritij  of  the  printer  should  never  be  brought  into 
question.  The  slightest  distrust  that  he  is  corrupt,  and  will,  for  mo- 
tives of  private  a(li*antaoe,  intrigue  for  appointments,  and  use  the  confi- 
dence which  his  position  necessarily  commands  from  his  party,  to  de- 
feat that  party's  interest,  will  render  his  aid  to  the  cause  nugatory, 
and  forfeit  all  the  benefit  of  his  position.  Long  established  custom,  too, 
has  clearly  marked  out  the  course  of  a  judicious  printer.  Messrs. 
Gales  &  Seaton  were  examples  that  any  man  might  have  been  proud 
to  imitate — for  whatever  might  be  their  claims  on  the  good  will  of  the 
Jackson  party,  their  dignity,  discretion,  and  fairness,  as  public  prin- 
ters, are  universally  conceded. 

To  what  a  remarkable  extent  Duff  Green  has  departed  from  this  ju- 
dicious course,  is,  in  general,  a  matter  of  notoriety;  but  some  instan- 
ces are  within  our  knowledge,  which  the  public  cannot  be  supposed  to 
know,  or  perhaps,  without  dithculty,  to  be  able  to  credit. 

It  was,  I  think,  in  August  1828,  that  this  notorious  gentleman  first 
madejiis  appearance  in  Boston.  The  division  in  the  party  had  then 
taken  place,  the  line  of  disunion  been  distinctly  marked,  the  new  paper 
established,  and  the  altercation  checked  from  a  conviction  that  any  ef- 
fort to  induce  the  Statesman  leaders  to  abandon  their  profligate  course, 
would  be  unavailing.  Duff  Green  had  access  to  both  divisions  of  the 
party,  and  professed  to  be  well  informed  on  all  the  subjects  of  discord. 
Towards  Col.  Orne  he  manifested  the  kindest  feelings,  and  the  most 
marked  respect.  Of  the  Statesman  newspaper  he  spoke  slightingly, 
affecting  to  regret  the  coarse,  abusive  and  degraded  tone  of  its  discus- 
sions. Towards  Mr.  Henshaw,  particularly,  he  seemed  to  feel  much 
resentment,  and  spoke  of  him  with  great  severity.  The  discord  in  the 
Jackson  ranks  he  regretted  ;  but  applauded,  in  the  highest  terms,  the 
forbearance  of  the  Jackson  republican  party,  and  urged  the  sac- 
rifice of  every  object  to  prevent,  at  least  to  the  world,  the  appearance 
of  discord.  The  union  of  the  federal  supporters  of  Gen.  Jackson  with 
the  republicans,  on  republican  ground,  he  spoke  of  as  a  party  desider- 
atum, and  as  the  object  to  which  the  main  efforts  of  his  paper  were 
directed.  Not  knowing  the  character  of  Duff  Green,  the  Jackson  re- 
publican party  had  many  reasons  for  forming  a  favorable  estimate  of 
his  sentiments,  and  of  his  intentions. 

But  he  was  not  long  without  exciting  distrust,  on  the  part  of  a  few 
to  whom  he  most  extensively  'disclosed  his  objects.  They  early  per- 
ceived that  the  man  was  destitute  of  judgment  and  discretion  ;  but  it 
was  not  at  first  that  they  had  so  much  reason  to  doubt  his  integrity. 
We  were  struck,  at  once,  by  his  overweening  vanity  and  self-impor- 
tance, which  rendered  it  difficult  to  converse  with  him  with  gravity, 
and  without  violating  the  rules  of  the  decorum  practised  by  gentlemen 


45 

with  strangers.     To  listen   to  Duflf  Green,    one    would  suppose  he 
viewed  himself  as  by  far  the  most  important  authority  in  the  republic, 
and  was  to  play,  after  the  election  of  Gen  Jackson,  a  game  much  su- 
perior to  that  of  the  president  and  congress.      He  spoke  of  bavin"-  put 
down  the  party  in  congress  who  wished  to  censure  Col,  Jarvis  for  his 
affair  with  Mr.  John  Adams,  by  threatening  to  appeal  to  the  Jackson 
public,  to  decide  between  his  services  and  their  own.     He  had,  he  said 
digested  a  system  for  the  government  of  the  press  of  this  country,  which 
would  require  many  years  to  be  matured,  but  which  would  present  one 
of  the  grandest  features  in  the  science  of  government,  and  give  him  an 
eminence  which  the  proudest  career  of  the  mere  statesman  could  not 
hope  to  reach.     Young  men  of  the  most  respectable  connexions  were 
urged  on  him  as  apprentices,  by  members  of  congress  from  all  parts  of 
the  country.     These  he  received  with   a  proper  regard  to  their  local 
distribution.     They  were  taught  thoroughly  the  trade  of  printinor^  and 
besides,  he  himself  paid  the  strictest  attention  to  their  mental  improve- 
ment, and  superintended  particularly  their  study  of  the  law,  which  he 
connected  with  his  system,  and  for  which  his  law  library  gave  him  great 
facilities.     After  being  properly  initiated  into  all  the  mysteries  of  the 
press,  these  young  men  were  to  be  recommended  by  him,  and  placed 
by  his  influence,  as   editors   in  the  various  quarters  of  the    republic, 
when  they  would  exercise  a  most  important  influence  over  the  public 
sentiment,  would  perhaps  take  a  prominent  lead  in  public  affairs,  but, 
at  all  events,  would  act  in  the  strictest  subordination  to,  and  harmony 
with  him,  the  guide   and  centre  of  the  political  system.      This  was  to 
procure  him  a  power,  and  a  fame,  in  comparison  with  which  the  high- 
est authorities  and  dignitaries  of  the  republic  were  frivolous  and  pue- 
rile. 

Mr.  Green's  main  object  in  coming  to  Boston,  he  said,  was  to  pro- 
cure a  loan  of  money.  He  was  embarrassed  every  moment  of  time, 
for  the  want  of  the  necessary  capital  to  conduct  his  press.  Without 
uncommon  financial  skill,  no  man  could  keep  his  workmen  together  a 
week.  He  wished  to  procure  a  loan  of  fifteen-thousand  dollars,  as  this 
amount,  in  addition  to  his  other  means,  would  constitute  a  capital  ade- 
quate to  his  establishment  ;  and  he  gave  the  Boston  friends  of  Gen. 
Jackson  the  preference,  in  this  mark  of  his  confidence  and  esteem. 
His  application  was  made  to  both  portions  of  the  Jackson  party,  but 
particularly  to  Dr.  Ingalls,  Gen.  Lyman,  Mr.  Henshaw  and  Col.  Orne 
From  Dr.  Ingalls  he  obtained  promptly  the  promise  of  five-thousand 
dollars,  which  was  soon  after  advanced  him  on  the  security  of  his  nak- 
ed note.  His  application  to  the  other  gentlemen  was  not  equally  suc- 
cessful. Gen.  Lyman  politely  but  firmly  declined.  Col.  Orne  inform- 
ed Mr.  Green  that  there  was  in  no  pert  of  the  L^nion,  where  the  Jack- 
son party  was  comparatively  so  weak  as  in  Boston,  and  none,  certain- 
ly, where  the  contest  involved  a  tax  so  heavy  on  the  resources  which 
the  party  could  command.  The  establishment  of  a  single  newspaper 
had  cost  himself  and  his  associates,  each,  at  least,  ^500,  which  was 
necessarily  a  sacrifice  in  the  cause.  There  were  besides  many  other 
occasions  of  heavy  expense,  and  before  the  campaign  could  be  ended, 


46 

the  pecuniary  sacrifice  ofeacli  of  these  gentlemen,  could  not  fall  mate- 
rially short  of  one  thousajid  dollars.  Yet,  weak  as  the  Jackson  party 
in  Boston  was,  compared  with  the  parties  in  New-York,  Philadelphia, 
and  Baltimore,  still,  if  the  support  of  the  central  Jackson  press  requir- 
ed the  aid  of  the  party,  we,  in  Boston,  would  furnish  our  equal  share. 
Let  New-York,  Philadelphia  and  Baltimore,  do  the  same,  and  the  cap- 
ital which  is  deemed  to  be  requisite  will  probably  be  had.  This  sug- 
gestion was  not  received  by  Mr.  Green  with  a  very  good  grace,  and 
the  subject  was  not  again  renewed.  The  only  loan,  therefore,  he  ob- 
tained at  that  time  was  that  of  ^5,000  from  Dr.  Ingalis.  From  the 
whole  Statesman  party  he  could  not  obtain  a  dollar,  and  he  left  them, 
apparently,  with  no  very  friendly  feelings. 

The  extraordinary  nature  of  this  application  excited  surprise,  and 
gave  rise  to  much  reflection,  on  the  part  of  some  of  those  to  whom  it 
was  made.  ^Vhy  should  Gen.  Green  come  to  Boston,  when  there 
were  so  many  in  Washington,  friendly  to  the  cause,  and  able  to  assist 
him  t  AVhy  come  such  a  distance  here,  when  other  cities  were  so 
much  nearer  :  Why  apply  where  the  party  was  comparatively  the 
weakest,  and  most  heavily  burdened  already  ?  And  why,  above  all, 
insist,  that  the  most  remote,  the  weakest,  and  most  heavily  burdened, 
should  furnish,  not  only  its  proportion,  but  the  whole  loan  .''  The  dis- 
inclination to  apply  to  Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  or  New-York,  was  ob- 
vious. What  was  the  motive  ?  Havin";  little  knowledge  of  Mr. 
Green's  character,  we  were  not  much  open  to  suspicion,  but  the  cir- 
cumstances struck  us  forcibly.  He  applied  first  to  the  Statesman  par- 
ty, but  meeting  with  no  encouragement,  he  tries  next  the  Jackson  re- 
publican party.  The  amount  was  very  large — the  credit  ofthe  bor- 
rower here  little  known — the  public  papers  spoke  of  his  embarrass- 
ments, and  the  pressing  nature  of  these  embarrassments  was  the  ground 
of  his  strong  claim  on  the  sympathies  ofthe  party.  A  loan  of  tifteen- 
thousand  dollars  to  him,  on  any  security  he  could  offer,  would  not  have 
been  worth  five-thousand,  the  next  moment,  in  our  market  ;  and,  we 
had  strong  reason  to  think,  in  no  other  market  in  the  country.  I 
doubt,  sincerely,  if  Dr.  Ingalis  had  offered  to  sell  the  note  of  five- 
thousand  dollars,  for  one-thousand,  whether  a  purchaser  could  have 
been  obtained.  The  sacrifices  Duff  Green  asked  wore  large,  heavy, 
and  appalling  ;  and  on  what  ground  could  he  have  calculated  we 
should  be  willing  to  make  them  ?  Was  it  possible  he  meant  to  take 
advantage  of  the  division  of  the  party,  and  sell  his  influence  for  the 
most  it  would  bring  .''  The  motives  of  a  man  are  hid  in  his  breast,  to 
all  but  the  omniscient  eye  ;  and  we  must  be  cautious  in  imputing  them 
to  any  one.  But  circumstances  sometimes  indicate  tlie  thoughts — the 
course  of  events  sometimes  marks  the  character  of  a  policy  or  project, 
as  distinctly  as  language  can  express  it. 

Suppose  some  friend  of  the  Statesman  had  loaned  Dufl'  Green 
money,  and  Col.  Orne  had  afterwards  oflbred  him  a  greater  loan, 
would  it  have  been  possible  for  Dufi' Green  to  have  charged  Col.  Orne 
with  an  intention  to  bribe  him  r  I  go  now  upon  the  ground  that  he 
was  hostile  to  Col,  Orne,  as  subsequent  events  have  demonstrated  he 


47 

was,  as  well  as  to  the  whole  Jackson  republican  party,  Nay,  suppose 
the  Statesman  loan  was  before  the  presidential  contest  was  decided, 
and  Col.  Orne's  offer  was  afterwards, — that  the  one  was  made  in  pub- 
lic, and  in  accordance  with  a  public  request,  addressed  to  many,  while 
the  other  was  offered  on  terms  of  profound  seci  esy, — would  Duff  Green 
suspect  that  the  offer  was  intended  as  a  bribe  ?  Let  us  see  how  he 
would  naturally  reason  on  the  subject.  "  I  asked  you.  Colonel  Orne, 
for  a  loan,  to  aid  in  the  elvction  of  Gen.  Jackson — you  refused  it  then — 
why  do  you  offer  it  now  he  is  elected  ?  I  asked  you  for  a  loan,  when 
my  embarrassments  might  have  injured,  essentially,  the  cause — you 
refused  it  then — why  offer  it  now,  when  even  by  my  ruin  the  cause 
could  not  be  affected  ?  I  asked  you  for  a  loan  when  it  was  hazardous 
to  make  it,  while  the  event  of  the  election  was  still  doubtful,  and  my 
solvency,  in  all  probability,  depended  upon  success — you  refused  it 
then — why  offer  it  now,  when  my  credit  is  indisputable,  my  success 
certain,  my  reward  magnificenf.  }  The  friends  of  the  Statesman  made 
me  a  loan  when  I  needed  it,  when  the  cause  needed  it,  when  it  was 
hazardous — openly, — you  offer  one,  when  I  am  prosperous  and  suc- 
cessful, when  the  cause  is  won,  when  there  is  no  hazard — secretly. 
He  who  made  the  loan,  was  a  candidate  for  no  office,  and  would  ac- 
cept none — you,  who  offer  it,  are  a  prominent  and  avowed  candidate 
for  an  important  appointment.  If  your  motive.  Col.  Orne,  be  not  to 
bribe  me,  pray  avow  what  it  is,  for  otherwise  I  must  reject  your  offer, 
as  aiming  at  the  integrity  of  my  character,  with  indignation  and  con- 
tempt." If  Col.  Orne  had  made  the  offer  under  such  circumstances, 
who  could  have  answered  the  argument,  and  repelled  the  imputation, 
which  Mr.  Green  might  so  naturally  have  made  : — or  if  Mr.  Green, 
under  such  circumstances,  had  accepted  Col.  Orne's  offer,  how  would 
Mr.  Green  have  met  the  imputation  of  others,  that  he  had  consented  to 
be  bribed. 

But  fortunately  for  Duff  Green,  and  for  Dr.  Ingails,  the  only  loan 
which  was  made  at  that  time  was  by  a  man  whose  disinterestedness  was 
above  all  suspicion,  and  is  above  all  cavil  :  By  a  man  whose  generous 
zeal  in  the  Jackson  cause  is  not  surpassed  among  the  millions  who 
rallied  under  the  Jackson  banner  :  By  a  man  who  had  no  personal  fa- 
vor to  ask,  nor  personal  favor  to  accept.  Fortunate  indeed  was  it, 
that  it  was  made  by  a  man  whose  disinterestedness  may  challenge  imi 
tation,  and  dety  malice, — whose  generous  and  magnanimous  liberality 
made  even  Duff  Green  ascribe  to  him  the  soul  and  feelings  of  a  prince. 
But  who  were  they,  thou  honest  printer  of  the  Telegraph  !  who  offer- 
ed you  a  loan  of  six  thousand  dollars,  after  the  contest  was  decided, 
and  the  hazard  was  at  an  end  ?  Were  they  candidates  for  appoint- 
ments ?  How  have  you  exerted  your  influence  in  their  behalf?  Have 
they,  or  many  of  them,  obtained  appointments,  through  your  means, 
and  of  a  character  so  disproportioned  to  their  standing,  as  to  exche  the 
astonishment  and  regret  of  every  honest  friend  of  the  president,  through 
the  United  States  ?  What  are  their  names  .?  Is  David  Henshaw,  or 
Andrew  Dunlap,  or  Nath'l.  Greene,  any  or  all  of  them,  among  the 
number  ?     Wliat  was  the  condition,  expressed  or  understood,  on  which 


48 

the  loan  was  offered  you  ?  Was  it  that  you  should  denounce  the 
Jackson  republican  party,  and  support  that  of  the  Statesman  ?  Was  it 
that  you  should  break  with  your  generous  benefactor,  return  him  his 
loan,  denounce  him  and  his  Iriends,  and  impute  his  noble  sacrifice  in 
your  favor  to  a  motive  of  corruption  ?  Did  you,  or  not,  after  this 
negotiation,  proceed  to  denounce  the  Jackson  republican  party,  for 
which  before  you  had  professed  so  much  friendship  and  respect  ?  Did 
you,  or  not,  ascribe  to  Dr.  Ingalls  a  motive  to  bribe  you,  and  talk  in- 
dignantly of  returning  his  loan  ?  Have  you  returned  his  loan  to  this 
hour,  or  do  you  still  retain,  what  you  called  Dr.  Ingalls'  bribe,  as  well 
as  the  latter  loan  from  the  Statesman  party,  which  you  did  not  call 
any  body's  bribe  ?  How  came  the  idea  of  bribery  to  enter  your  head  ? 
Who  charged  you  with  it — nay,  how  came  the  ideas  of  bribery  and 
loan  ever  to  be  coupled  by  you  t* 

I  accuse  you  not,  Duff  Green — I  put  nothing  to  your  conscience — I 
leave  those  things  to  God  and  your  country.      I3ut  I  am  a  little  curious 
in  metaphysics,  and  wish  to  understand  by  what  law  of  mental  associ- 
ation  it  is,  that  the   ideas  of  loan  and  bribery  first  became  coupled   in 
your  understanding  ?     I  am,  too,  a  humble  admirer  of  close  logical  de- 
duction, and  it  distresses  me  beyond  measure  to  trace  the  progressive 
steps  in   the   argumentative   process,  by  which  bribery  is  fastened   on 
the  first  open,   generous,    hazardous,  needed,  useful  loan,  from  a  man 
who  had    no  selfish   desire    to   be   gratified  ; — while   the   very   suspi- 
cion of  it  is  repelled,   from  the  last,  secret,  safe  unnecessary,  useless 
loan,  from  men  who  were  avowed  candidates  for  appointments,  and  to 
whose  objects  you   have  lent  your  aid  with  devotion  and  efl^ect.     Ex- 
plain this,  if  you  can,  on  any  principle  of  honesty  or  honor,  and  I  will 
acknowledge,  that  your  claim  to  my  execration  is  something  weaker 
than  I  had  supposed.  COLUMBUS. 


COLUMBUS,  NO.   XL 

The  Electors  of  the  United  States  had  scarcely  given  their  suffrages 
for  president,  and  the  result  of  the  violent  contest  become  known, 
when  the  Statesman  party  prepared  to  enter  into  the  various  offices, 
in  this  place,  dependant  on  the  federal  government.  Never,  since 
the  time  of  Jack  Cade,  was  seen  such  a  motley  host  ready  to  bear, 
on  their  ragged  shoulders,  the  honors  and  the  burdens  of  public  af- 
fairs. You  would  have  thought,  to  have  watched  their  motions,  and 
listened  to  their  sentiments,  that  the  time  was  at  length  arrived  when 
the  beggars  were  to  mount  horses,  and  ride  to  as  the  old  adage 


work 
be 


*There  is  something  as  admirable  as  peculiar  in  Duff  Green's  gratitude.  He  has  some 
)rkings  of  kindness  to  Dr.  Ingalls,  and  would  really  like  to  do  him  good,  if  the  Dr.  would 
oe  obedient.  Duff  has  been  cicoedingly  anxious  to  liave  the  Dr.  unite  with  Duff's  tools  of 
the  Statesman,  and  has  made  him  bounteous  offers  of  public  offices.  Kut  as  the  Dr.  will 
have  an  opinion  of  his  own.  Duff  gets  quite  outrageous,  and  showes  his  gratitude  for  the 
almost  unprecedent  liberahty  of  the"  Dr.  by  threatening,  unless  some  other  person  will 
stop  exposing  Duff,  that  he  will  expose  the  Doctor's  private  correspondence  !!! 


49 

has  it.  Apothecaries  quitted  their  drugs,  and  their  pestles,  and  thought 
to  physic  no  diseases  but  those  of  the  state.  Leaving  the  mortars  of 
medicine,  they  prepared  to  direct  the  mortars  of  war,  and  to  change 
the  scene  from  the  shop  to  a  pubHc  department — from  the  ragamuffins 
of  the  Statesman,  to  the  courts  of  foreign  states  and  princes.  The 
sellers  of  drams  and  grog  said,  that  the  time  was  come  when  they  would 
no  longer  collect  cents  from  dirty  Irishmen,  but  would  preside  over 
the  revenue  of  a  nation  ;  and  instead  of  shop  boys,  would  have  public 
dignitaries  to  aid  them.  The  butcher  thought,  that  he  who  had  so  long 
administered  to  private  hunger,  was  best  able  to  supply  public  wants, 
and  would  quit  his  shambles  for  the  stately  department  of  the  customs. 
The  tailor  contended,  and  with  great  force,  that  he  who  made  clothes 
for  the  naval  service,  was  the  most  competent  to  buy  them,  and  would 
quit  his  needle  and  goose,  sooner  than  the  navy  agency  should  remain 
in  incompetent  hands.  The  printer  thought,  that  no  profession  was  so 
intimately  connected  with  the  post  office  as  his,  and  stamping  letters, 
upon  the  whole,  rather  a  more  dignified,  as  it  was  certainly  a  more  lu- 
crative business,  than  pressing  newspapers.  The  enthusiasm  was  in- 
deed so  general,  that  all  orders  of  men  seemed  to  lose  sight  of  their  pri- 
vate pursuits,  and,  in  the  ardor  of  patriotism,  to  devote  their  all  to  the 
service  of  the  country.  The  quack,  to  dose  the  body  politic  with  his 
drugs — the  tinman,  to  tinker  the  flaws  of  the  constitution,  the  uphol- 
sterer, to  wrap  dignified  rank  in  a  more  becoming  drapery,  and  the  ma- 
ker of  beds,  to  supply  feathers  for  tar,  on  tliose  who  should  retire. 
All  seized  upon  their  prey,  and  the  merry  burden  of  the  song  went 
round, 

*'  We're  all  on  hobbies,  gee  up,  gee  ho." 

To  the  sober  and  discreet  citizen,  this  was  rather  a  scene  of  amuse- 
ment than  humiliation  How  little,  it  was  thought,  do  these  people 
know  of  the  manly  character,  and  elevated  sentiments  of  Gen.  Jackson, 
to  suppose  that  corruption  will  find  favor  in  his  sight,  and  the  dignified 
trusts  of  the  public  be  conferred  on  the  most  degraded  classes  of  the 
people.  To  us  who  felt  scarcely  less  deeply  for  the  character  of  the 
party,  than  the  honor  of  the  country,  it  was  absolutely  a  subject  of 
merriment,  to  think  how  the  air  built  castles  which  the  beggars  had 
raised,  would  vanish  at  the  first  stern  sober  glance  of  the  hero  of  his 
country.  ''  It  will  not  be  three  months,"  said  a  Jackson  man  from  the 
south,  of  high  character  and  rank,  who  visited  here  during  the  contest 
— ''  after  the  election  of  Gen.  Jackson,  before  these  Statesman  men, 
and  their  Duff  Green's,  and  others  of  their  class,  will  be  abusing  the 
president  as   zealously  as  they  are  now  abusing  his  opponents." 

The  expectations  of  ourselves,  however,  and  of  the  honorable  men 
of  the  Jackson  party  who  thought  with  us,  have  been  wofully  disappoint- 
ed. The  low  men  succeeded,  and  are  still  triumphant.  But  neither 
our  friends,  nor  ourselves,  can  believe  that  we  were  mistaken  in  the 
views  and  intentions  of  the  president.  The  unexpected  result  is  as- 
cribed to  a  combination  of  circumstances,  partly  fraudulent,  and  partly 
accidental,  by  which  a  true  knowledge  of   the  state  of  things  has  been 


50 

kept  from  the  pre:^ident  ;  and  which  have  placed  him  in  a  position  as 
little  satisfactory  to  himself,  as  to  us.  The  first  moment  of  the  meet- 
ino-  of  cono-rcss  was  seized  upon  by  the  Statesman  party,  for  the  com- 
mencement of  the  measures  by  which  the  othces  were  to  be  secured. 
jVIr,  Nath'l.  Greene  first  posted  to  Washington,  under  the  convenient 
pretext  of  reporting  the  debates,  to  pour  his  malignant  falsehoods  into 
the  ears  of  the  members  from  all  quarters  of  the  country.  Duff  Green 
had  been  retained  to  support  him,  and  this  American  Marat  made  his 
assistance  effectual  with  all  he  could  influence  or  deceive.  Mr.  Greene 
had  been  there  but  a  short  time,  when  he  was  followed  by  member  after 
member  of  the  Statesman  party,  to  reiterate  the  same  falsehoods,  and 
advance  the  same  objects.  In  the  course  of  the  political  season,  nol 
less  than  twenty  of  these  profligate  agents  assembled,  and  remained,  in 
active  cooperation,  until  their  desires  were  accomplished.  There  was 
not,  probablv,  a  man  of  the  party  who  visited  the  seat  of  government, 
who  was  not  himself  a  candidate  for  oflice  ;  and  who,  if  not  a  direct 
party  to  the  intrigue,  was  not,  at  least,  dependant  on  its  siiccess  for  his 
own.  No  wonder  all  tiiese  men  were  clamorous  for  Mr.  Henshaw, 
for  they  were  well  aware  it  were  to  be  clamorous  for  themselves.  The 
disregard  of  decency,  and  of  respect  for  the  president,  which  these 
proceedings  evince,— the  disgraceful,  unblushing  character  of  the 
whole  transaction,— it  was  thought  by  honorable  men,  would  fill  the 
president  and  his  cabinet  with  disgust.  But  the  contusion  of  the  mo- 
ment, and  the  entire  want  of  knowledge  of  the  actual  local  parties,  by 
the  members  of  the  cabinet,  who  happened,  in  this  respect  most  unfor- 
tunately, to  be  inexperienced  men,  presented  the  only  possible  means 
of  the  intrigue  beinor  successful. 

The  Jackson  republican  party  could  not,  let  the  consequences  be 
what  they  miojht,  degrade  themselves  so  far,  or  insult  the  president 
so  much.  They  stood  aloof,  relying  upon  their  known  public 
course,  upon  the  integrity  of  their  characters,  and  upon  that  reputa- 
tion which  the  government  could  not  have  failed  to  be  aware  of,  upon 
the  slightest  inquiry  of  respectable  men.  The  Statesman  agents  gave 
themselves  out  as  a  committee  of  the  Jackson  party  in  Boston,  and  the 
absence  of  a  similar  committee  from  our  party,  gave  some  color  to 
the  pretext.  As  the  Jackson  republicans  presented  but  one  candidate, 
Col.  Orne  for  the  collectorsliip,  the  single  object  of  the  Statesman 
host  was  to  put  him  down,  in  order  to  make  the  whole  game  their 
own.  Some  of  the  gross  falsehoods  uttered  against  him,  have  already 
been  fully  exposed,  and  there  were  probably  many  others,  similar, 
which  have  not  yet  come  to  light.  Their  calumnies  were  listened  to 
by  men,  whose  own  sense  of  dignity,  alone,  should  have  repelled  them. 
The  Jackson  republicans  despised  these  slanders  too  much  to  reply  to 
them  ;  and  insulted  not  the  presence  of  the  chief  magistrate  of  the 
country,  by  exiiibitions  of  contention  ;  nor  his  ear,  by  details  of  slan- 
der. Honorable  men  shrunk  from  the  scene  which  the  intriguers  then 
monopolized,  and,  unfortunately  for  the  government,  and  the  country, 
but  too  successfully  tor  their  plans.     We   retained    our   delicacy,  our 


51       . 

respect  for  the  governmeFit,  and   our  attachment  to  the   purity  of  the 
pubHc  institutions — and  wo  fell. 

There  are  a  few  of  the  known  grounds  on  which  the  claims  of  the 
Statesman  party  were  urged,  which  it  may  be  important  for  me,  cur- 
sorily, to  consider. 

It  was  said,  iij  the  first  place,  that  they  were  the  oldest  supporters 
of  the  president — but  this  groundless,  ridiculous  pretension  has  al- 
ready been  effectually  exposed.  Dr.  Ingalls,  Gen.  Lyman  and  Col. 
Oilie,  who  established  the  Jackson  Republican,  were  opposed  to  Mr. 
Adams  from  the  commencement  of  the  contest  for  a  successor  to  Mr. 
Munroe,  and  were,  of  course,  always  for  the  candidates  of  that  oppo- 
sition ;  and  when  the  united  party  presented  but  one,  were  for  Gen. 
Jackson.     This  period  commenced  with  the  Panama  discussions. 

The  next  ground  was  the  superior  pecuniary  sacrifices  they  made  in 
the  cause.  But  the  incontestible  truth  is  that,  in  the  Jackson  contest, 
by  far  the  largest  amount  of  pecuniary  sacrifices  was  made  by  the  pro- 
prietors of  the  Jackson  Republican.  The  friends  of  the  Statesman 
can  show  but  little,  if  any,  loss  in  this  behalf,  independent  of  the  enor- 
mous equivalents  they  are  drawing  from  the  public  treasury.  The 
claims  in  this  respect,  made  by  Mr.  Nathaniel  Greene,  are  ridiculous 
in  the  extreme,  and  shall  hereafter  be  the  subject  of  special  considera- 
tion. This  ground,  however,  if  it  were  just,  presents  but  a  miserable* 
claim  for  public  trusts — the  conferring  of  which  should  regard  only  the 
welfare  of  the  country,  the  honor  of  the  government,  and  the  public  as 
well  as  party  character  and  qualifications  of  the  candidates. 

But  the  main  point  in  their  pretensions  was  their  comparative  supe- 
riority of  numbers.  We,  they  said,  were  a  handful,  while  they  were  a 
numerous  party — there  were  not  twenty  of  us,  while  they  were  eight 
or  nine  hundred  strong.  If  this  pretension  were  just,  which  I  shall 
presently  show  was  entirely  destitute  of  foundation,  it  would  afford  no 
ground  for  the  preference  ;  for  the  friends  of  General  Jackson  who  had 
been  wronged,  ought  not  to  be  denounced  by  him  on  account  of  the 
smallness  of  their  numbers  :  nor  the  wrong  doers  to  be  rewarded  for 
the  largeness  of  theirs.  The  question  would  still  have  remained,  which 
party  was  able  to  afford  the  most  efficient  aid  to  the  government  ^  and 
the  pret^erence  would  have  been  at  once  given  to  the  Jackson  republi- 
can party,  for  the  superior  influence  of  their  character,  and  the  less 
objectionable  course  of  their  conduct.  The  ascendancy  of  the  Jack- 
son republican  party  involved  the  sacrifice  of  no  other  portion  of  Gen- 
eral Jackson's  friends.  They  unfurled  a  banner  under  which  all  the 
supporters  of  the  president  could  rally  ;  while  that  of  the  Statesman 
involved  a  sacrifice  of  a  part.  With  the  Jackson  republicans,  all  the 
respectable  part  of  our  population,  who  did  not  wish  to  engage  in  an 
opposition  to  the  gorvernment,  would  rally — while  the  Statesman  party 
could  never,  by  any  possibility,  attract  the  public  confidence.  If  Col. 
Orne,  or  any  other  respectable  member  of  that  party,  had  been  ap- 
pointed collector,  there  would  have  been  but  one  party  here,  and  that 
of  the  Statesman  would  have  instantaneously  gone  down.  Some  twen- 
ty or  thirty  disappointed  men    would   have  gone  into  the    opposition, 

7 


52 

while  all  the  rest  of  the  party  would  have  acted  in  harmony  together. 
But,  in  fact,  the  numbers  of  the  Statesman  party  were  not  greater  than 
those  of  the  Jackson  Republican. 

The  vote  for  electors  was  a  Jackson  vote,  regardless  of  the  division. 
It   comprised  the  whole   body  of   Gen.  Jackson's  friends,    federal  and 
democratic,  Statesman  and  Jackson  republican.     The  aggregate  vote 
afforded  no  ground  of  measuring  the  comparative  strength  of  the  differ- 
ent parties  who  combined  to  cast  it.     The  vote  for  Dr.  Ingalls,  one  of 
the    proprietors  of  the  Jackson  Republican,  who  was    put  up  for  con- 
gress long  after  the  existence  of  the  paper,  although  affected  by   tariff 
considerations,  was,  within  one   hundred,    as  strong   as   the    electoral 
vote.      The  denunciation  of  our  party   by  Duff  Green,  on  whose   influ- 
ence and  efforts,  no  doubt,  very  much  was  expected  by  this  communi- 
ty, gave  much  strength  to  the  Statesman  party.     And  yet,  afterwards, 
on  the  only  occasion  when  the  Statesman  party  relied  on  the  support  of 
their  strength,  independent  of  ours,  to   wit,   on   the  nomination  of  An- 
drew Dunlap  for  mayor,  their  number,  if  I  remember  correctly,   and  I 
am  sure  I  can   be   mistaken  but  in  few  votes,  was  short  of  three  hun- 
dred.    Even  here,   however,  they  had  some  support,  auxiliary  to  their 
own  ;  for  Mr.   Dunlap  was  run,  not  merely   as   a   Jackson,   but  as  the 
only  democratic  candidate,  and  the  force  of  party  prejudices  gave  him 
some  stren2;th.     That  which  approached  the   nearest  to  a  test  of  num- 
bers, was  the  dinner  celebration  on  the  fourth  of  March  ;  we,  in  Fan- 
euil  Hall,   being   about  five  hundred,    while  they,  in   the    Washington 
Gardens,  fell  short  of  700.      Tlieir  numbers,  however,  were  augment- 
ed by  uncommon  exertions  out  of  Boston,  and  it  has  been  supposed  by 
some  that  the  collection  embraced  nearly  as  many  from  without  as  from 
within  the  city.     The  Statesman  party  after  this  never  made   an  effort 
by  which  their  strength  could  be  fairly  tested.     In   the  spring  election 
of  state  senators,  the  Statesman- Jackson,    and   the   democratic  Adams 
parties,  united  for  a  mixed  ticket  ;   and  their  aggregate  force  was  only 
about  nine  hundred.     This  ticket  presented  the  united  candidates  of  the 
Statesman  and  Patriot  newspapers,  and  the    democratic  friends  of  the 
latter,  compared  to  those  of  the  former,  were  certainly  as  two  to  one. 
In  the  subsequent  election    of  representatives  the    same    course  was 
pursued  ;  an  union  Jackson  and  Adams  democratic  list  was  supported, 
and  it  again   failed.     The  requisite  number,  however,  was   not  at  first 
elected  by  the  national  republicans,  and  i\\e   Statesman  run  a  Jackson 
list  to  fill  the  vacancies.     1  do  not  recollect   precisely  their  whole  num- 
ber of  votes,  but  it  was,  I  think,  considerably  short  of  those  Mr.  Dun- 
lap had  previously  obtained, — probably  about  two  hundred. 

It  was  true  the  Jackson  republican  list  of  senators,  put  up  exclusive- 
ly on  Jackson  ground,  obtained  only  about  three  hundred  votes.  But 
this  effort  was  made  after  success  was  despaired  of,  after  the  party  had 
been  apparently  given  up  by  the  government  to  be  denounced,  and 
those  appointments  had  been  made,  and  others  boasted  of,  which  must 
be  fatal  to  the  growth  of  any  Jackson  party  in  this  commonwealth.  If 
the  circumstances  had  been  reversed,  the  Statesman  party  would  not 
have  been  one  hundred   strong,  while  that  of  the  Jackson  republicans 


63 

would  have  approached  two  thousand.  This  is  a  matter  of  opinion  only, 
it  is  true  ;  but  it  is  that  of  a  man  who  has  some  reputation  to  lose,  and 
who  would  do  more  than  hazard  it  by  a  public  assertion  destitute  of 
reasonable  grounds  of  probability. 

The  grounds,  then,  oh  which  the  public  trusts  were  claimed,  by  the 
self-constituted  agents  of  the  Statesman  party,  were  destitute  of  truth, 
as  well  as  of  merit.  Their  success  had  occasioned  an  irreparable  in- 
jury to  the  government,  and  inflicted  a  signal  injustice  on  the  most 
honorable  portion  of  the  friends  of  the  president  in  this  quarter. 
The  loiv  men  are  in  power,  in  spite  of  their  injustice  and  their  cor- 
ruption. They  have  gained  it  without  merit,  or  qualifications,  or 
character.  They  earned  their  success,  neither  by  an  early  declara- 
tion for  the  cause,  nor  by  a  constant  zeal  in  support  of  it.  They 
had  incurred  few  sacrifices  to  gain  it  success,  and  possessed  no 
strength  to  recompense,  by  a  future  support,  the  deadly  odium  of 
their  elevation.  Vice  is  sometimes  allowed  to  appear  in  triumph 
and  splendor,  but  there  is  an  intelligent  public  opinion,  which,  like 
the  eternal  decrees  of  an  all-seeing  God,  proclaims  that  its  triumph 
shall  be  short,  and  that  blessings  and  success  shall  never  follow  in 
the  footsteps  it  treads. 

COLUMBUS. 


COLUMBUS,  NO.  XIL 

I  have  spoken  of  Mr.  Nathaniel  Greene's  appointment  to  the  Boston 
post  ofiice,  as  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  measures  which  ever  took 
place  under  this  or  any  other  government.  I  have  incidentally  spok- 
en of  his  character  and  standing,  and  will  now  consider  the  claims  on 
which  his  pretensions  have  been  supported,  and  the  appointment  j^as 
been  attempted  to  be  justified.    They  are,  I  believe,  the  following: 

He  was,  it  is  said,  the  publisher  and  editor  of  the  Boston  Statesman. 

He  sacrificed  a  great  many  thousand  dollars  in  support  of  the  Jack- 
son cause. 

He  had  been  persecuted  hy  the  city  authorities  on  account  of  his  po- 
litical conduct. 

That  Mr.  Nath'l.  Greene  was  the  puhlisJter  of  the  Boston  Statesman 
will  not  be  denied — but  before  I  can  admit  that  he  was  its  editor,  I 
must  beg  to  learn  in  what  sense  the  term  is  understood.  If  it  be 
meant  that  he  was  generally,  or  even  frequently,  the  writer  of  the  ar- 
ticles which  appeared  under  the  editorial  head,  then  most  certainly  he 
was  not  the  editor.  The  assertion  of  the  Bulletin,  that  the  Statesman 
had  nineteen  editors,  is  certainly  within  the  truth.  I  have  no  doubt 
that  there  are  at  this  moment,  in  Boston,  more  than  nineteen  men 
whose  writings  have  appeared  in  that  paper  as  editorial.  Any  one  who 
knows  Mr.  Greene,  must  know  his  utter  incompetency  to  write,  with 
ability,  editorial  articles  in  a  newspaper.  His  information  on  political 
subjects  is  as  limited  as  his  political  principles  are  vague  and  indefinite. 
He  never  was  a  ^artizan  even  by  profession  ;  and  if  he  knows  the  sub- 


64 

stantial  difference  between  a  federalist  and  a  democrat,  an  aristocrat 
and  a  jacobin,  which  I  seriously  doubt,  it  is  certain  that  he  cares  noth- 
ino-  about  it.  Mr.  Greene  seldom  wrote,  so  far  as  1  have  any  knowl- 
edge of  the  paper,  unless  when  personally  attacked,  or  some  little 
scrap  of  an  article  intended  to  be  witty,  in  imitation  of  Mr.  Noah — 
and  himseJf,  as  it  was  the  only  subject  about  which  he  cared  in  poli- 
tics, so  it  was  the  only  one  which  could  call  forth  his  eloquence. 

But  if  it  had  been  true  that  he  was  the  editor,  was  he  not  j^aid  for 
the  services  he  rendered  ?  ^Vhat  supported  his  family,  certainly  not 
in  a  manner  remarkable  for  its  economy,  but  the  recompense  he  obtain- 
ed in  his  vocation  ?  Is  a  man,  as  Duff  Green  most  pointedly  asked, 
entitled  to  double  recompense  for  the  same  services  ?  Are  the  labors 
of  editors  really  gratuitous  in  a  cause  ?  Do  they  receive  noth- 
ing more  than  the  expense  they  are  at  in  employing  the  servi- 
ces of  others  ?  The  idea  is  something  new  that  a  party  must  support 
a  printer  for  his  adherence  to  their  cause,  and  the  printer  have  all  the 
advantages  of  the  party's  success  It  was  not  thus  in  times  of  yore  ; 
by  what  improved  state  of  the  public  intelligence  does  it  happen  now  ? 
And  if  it  be  generally  understood  as  an  established  precedent,  hgw 
long  will  parties  continue  to  labor  for  the  elevation  of  printers  ? 

But  suppose  him  both  the  publisher  and  editor,  does  that  fact  alone 
entitle  him  to  his  station,  or  is  something  like  superior  merit,  talents, 
or  devotion  to  the  cause — the  rendering  of  important  services — also 
necessary  ?  ^Vas  the  Boston  Statesman  servicable  to  the  Jackson 
cause  ?  So  far  l>om  it,  there  is  no  speculative  opinion,  of  the  truth  of 
which  I  am  more  deeply  convinced  than  this  :  that  if  there  had  been 
no  such  paper  in  existence,  the  Jackson  cause,  in  this  state,  would 
have  been  supported  by  twice  the  numbers,  and  those,  too,  ten  times 
more  respectable  in  character.  This  is  not  an  opinion  which  has 
sprung  up  under  the  influence  of  paity  dissensions  ;  but  it  has  been 
for  years  the  sentiment  of  the  writer,  and  a  sentiment  too  in  which  he 
has  been  joined  by  a  very  large  number  of  the  most  respectable  friends 
of  the  present  administration.  It  was  a  subject  of  common  observation 
and  complaint,  for  years,  and  numerous  facts  could  be  adduced  to  ren- 
der that  opinion  almost  incontrovertible.  Such  coarse  and  abusive 
writings  as  those  of  Mr.  Henshaw,  and  Mr.  Dunlap,  never  did,  and 
never  can  benefit  a  party,  with  an  intelligent  community.  The  cause 
they  support  emits  a  bad  odor  which  keeps  respectable  men  from  em- 
bracing it  ;  and  not  unfrequently  disgusts  such  as  manifest  a  prefer- 
ence in  its  favor.  Let  the  writings  of  these  men,  in  that  paper,  be  re- 
ferred to,  and  then  say  how  it  was  possible  that  any  good  cause  could 
be  advanced  by  them.  What  light  do  they  throw  on  the  true  grounds 
of  the  party  contest  ?  "Who  can  learn  by  these  writings  any  thing  of 
the  character  of  party  principles,  of  public  measures,  of  the  qualifica- 
tions of  men,  or  of  the  state  or  national  institutions  ?  A  few  heads, 
which  any  school  boy  could  commit  to  memory  in  half  an  hour,  con- 
tained all  the  subjects  of  their  learned  discussion  ;  and  on  these  the 
changes  were  rung  in  infinite  variety.  A  few  cabalistic  phrases,  re- 
iterated until  the  ear  was  fatigued  with  the    monoiony,  and  the  spirits 


65 

were  exhausted  by  the  endless  recurrence  of  the  same  unvarying  sub- 
ject, contained  the  sum  of  their  intelligence  and  their  arguments. 
The  Hartford  convention,  artstocracy,  the  royal  family  of  the  Johns, 
gag  laws,  federalism,  democracy,  and  John  Adams'  nose,  were  the  con- 
centrated essence  of  all  the  thought,  and  all  the  eloquence,  which 
these  accomplished  statesmen  poured,  in  such  protracted  cadence,  into 
the  wearied  ears  of  the  community.  Instead  of  benefiting  a  cause,  I 
know  of  no  better  means  of  rendering  it  odious  and  contemptible,  in 
this  section  of  the  country,  than  by  such  support  as  Messrs.  Henshaw 
and  Dunlap  rendered,  to  Gen.  Jackson,  for  a  few  years  past,  in  the 
polluted  columns  of  the  Boston  Statesman.  If  the  contest  obtained  any 
support  among  us,  it  was  not  by,  but  in  defiance  of  the  aid  of  these 
writers. 

But  Mr.  Greene  sacrificed  in  the  support  of  the  cause  mayiy  thousand 
dollars.  It  has  been  stated  that  he  carried  to  Washington  figures  and 
documents  to  prove,  that  the  sacrifices  involved  by  his  devoted  zeal, 
did  not  fall  much  short  of  thirty  thousand  dollars.  Every  Jackson- 
man  who  has  any  knowledge  of  the  affairs  of  the  Statesman,  could  at 
once  prove  the  entire  falsehood  of  this  assertion.  The  Statesman  nev- 
er sacrificed,  and  never  lost  a  dollar,  in  the  service.  It  was  published 
eight  or  ni«e  years,  but  never  with  a  profit.  It  yielded  a  very  liberal 
support  to  Mr.  Greene,  and  his  family  and  associates — it  gave  them  a 
living,  but  it  could  not  gain  them  a  fortune.  A  paper  of  such  a  char- 
acter never  could  succeed  in  this  intelligent  community.  But  though 
it  gained  nothing,  it  probably  lost  little.  To  conduct  such  a  paper  for 
many  years  required  a  capital  of  many  thousand  dollars,  and  as  this  was 
not  possessed  by  the  publishers,  loans  were  made  them  by  Messrs. 
Henshaw  and  Simpson,  and  by  Col.  Orne.  The  largest  advance  was 
made  progressively,  by  the  former  gentleman,  reluctantly  but  of  ne- 
cessity, as  means  of  preventing  the  failure  of  the  press,  and  the  loss  of 
a  part  of  the  sum  in  advance.  But  the  stock,  apparatus,  &c.  of  an  es-» 
tablishment  of  this  magnitude,  were  the  means  of  his  indemnity  ;  and 
it  is  not  believed  that  they  were  very  deficient  for  the  object.  It  was 
in  his  power,  at  any  day,  to  compel  the  proprietors  to  make  an  absolute 
conveyance  of  the  establishment.  The  next  largest  loan  was  made 
by  Col.  Orne,  and  for  a  long  time  the  very  largest.  But  he  calculated, 
in  the  event  of  difficulty,  that  his  advances  would  be  sunk.  Does  the 
temper  these  people  have  recently  evinced  towards  him  leave  any 
room  to  doubt  the  justice  of  his  apprehensions  .'* 

But  whether  the  paper  advocated  one  cause  or  another,  was  a  ques- 
tion of  interest,  on  which  the  chances  were  calculated,  and  the  risk 
deliberately  taken.  It  was  deemed  by  the  publishers  the  most  politic 
course  to  advocate  the  cause  of  Mr.  Crawford,  as  his  success  would 
place  the  interests  of  the  paper  on  very  commanding  ground.  The 
chance  of  Mr.  Crawford's  success  they  deemed  the  best.  In  this  they 
were  mistaken,  and  their  calculations  defeated.  But  it  by  no  means 
follows  because  a  speculation  is  unsuccessful,  that  interest  is  not  the 
object  of  it.  The  disappointment  of  the  publi.^hers  made  them  sick  of 
political  speculations,  and  very  resolute  in  refusing  to  engage  in  oth- 


56 

ers.  Towards  the  close  of  the  contest,  the  same  chances  invited  to  a 
support  of  Gen.  Jackson,  and  in  this  they  were  successful.  There  was 
every  grouwd  to  believe  tliat  his  success  would  place  the  party  in  as- 
cendancy in  this  commonwealth,  and  if  such  a  paper  could  ever  be- 
come profitable,  that  circumstance  would  have  gendered  it  so.  But 
does  this  calculation  of  chances  show  a  disposition  to  make  sacrificea 
in  a  cause  ?  Is  not  self-interest,  after  all,  the  object  by  which  the 
course  is  regulated  .^  Would  their  chance  have  been  better  in  the  sup- 
port of  Mr.  Adams  ?  Certainly  not  half  so  good.  In  that  game  they 
had  too  many  competitors,  and  those  too  in  much  better  estimation  ; 
and  Mr.  Adams'  success  could  have  promised  them  no  possible  advan- 
tage. 

Yet  not  only  did  the  support  of  General  Jackson  afford  the  best 
chance  of  profit,  but  was  the  immediate  cause  of  extensive  patronage. 
If  a  subscriber  withdrew  for  such  a  cause,  ten  new  ones  were  immedi- 
atelv  obtained.  Tiie  ordinary  course  of  aiming  to  advance  a  cause, 
is  to  increase  the  circulation  of  the  paper  by  which  it  is  advocated. 
To  obtain  such  circulation  has  been  frequently  the  object  of  the  party. 
And  funds  have  been  at  various  times  subscribed,  and  gratuitously 
bestowed  on  the  publishers,  to  enable  them  to  travel  in  order  to  ad- 
vance the  cause  by  the  increase  of  their  subscription.  The  support  of 
General  Jackson  was,  therefore,  to  them  the  occasion  of  an  immedi- 
ate aid,  as  well  as  ultimate  flattering  prospects.  Surely  if  sacrifices 
are  the  ground  of  political  claims,  the  printers  of  a  party  are  frequent- 
ly the  last  men  entitled  to  the  advantage. 

Perhaps,  however,  it  will  be  said  that,  by  the  support  of  this  cause, 
the  publishers  of  the  Statesman  lost  the  patronage  of  men  in  power. 
If  so,  ihere  could  not  be  expressed  a  greater  mistake.  There  was  no 
press  in  Boston  that  received  half  the  patronage  of  the  Adams  party, 
which  was  given  to  the  Statesman  printers. —  They  ivere,  in  the  first  jAace, 
^printers  to  the  state.  This,  it  may  be  said,  they  obtained  by  the  lowest 
bid  at  auction.  It  may  be  so,  but  the  public  have  the  evidence  on  the 
trial  of  Mr.  Child  for  a  libel,  and  can  judge  for  themselves,  whether 
or  not  the  Adams  committee,  of  an  Adams  legislature,  were,  or  were 
not  willing  to  give  True  and  Greene  a  bonus  over  all  other  candidates, 
o{jive  hundred  doltars  a  year.  At  least  all  will  be  satisfied  that  if  there 
was  no  favor,  there  was  no  persecution  in  that  aflair. 

They  were  also  printers^  a  part  of  the  time,  for  the  city  aidhorities, — an- 
other body  of  Adams  partisans.  This  they  ultimately  lost,  for  a  cause 
which  I  shall  soon  consider,  but  for  which  they  claim  great  merit. 
They  had,  a  portion  of  the  term,  the  printing  of  the  general  post  oflice 
in  WashiniJ^ton — a  most  lucrative  concern.  Here  they  had  the  very 
patronage  of  the  Adams  government  itself,  and  for  a  period  of  tmie 
during  the  Jackson  contest,  as  long  as  any  paper,  or  printers,  in  New- 
England.  This  was  not  obtained  by  the  lnwcst  bid  at  auction.  The 
post  master,  Dr.  Hill,  advertised  his  letters  Jialf  the  time,  in  the  Statesman. 
The  patronage  was  equally  divided  between  the  Statesman  and  Patri- 
ot. This  did  not  look  much  like  Adams  proscription.  And,  though 
last,  not  least,  the   Statesman,  durii^^  the  whole  la:>t  seven  years  of  the 


57 

presidential  coyest,  had  a  large  portion  of  the  priniing  of  the  Boston  cus- 
tom-house.    Another  pretty  valuable  job,  from  the  Adams  goverhment, 
and  one  which  does  not  look  much  like  proscription  !     A\hat  renders 
this  last  patronage  the  more  remarkable,  is,  that  it  was  conferred  by  a 
collector  whom  the   Statesman  was  constantly  exertmg  itself  to  turn 
out,  and  who  has  since  been  obliged  to  yield  his  place  to  the  disinter- 
ested Mr.  Henshaw.     Here,  I  apprehend,  was  a  kind  of  proscription, 
which  \dams  papers  would  have  liked  to  suffer  from  the  Adams  party 
Let  him,  who   can,   show,  in  the  whole  of  New  England,  an  equal 
amount  of  Adams  patronage  conferred  on   any  other  press.     Let  any 
Adams  press  show  an  equality,  in  this  respect,  with  the  Statesman,  and 
I  will  hold  my  tongue  about  proscription. 

But,  in  one  case,  indeed,  Mr.  Greene  certainly  was  proscribed.  It 
has  been  proclaimed  all  over  the  country,  and  therefore  must  be  true. 
The  president  has  been  told  of  it  repeatedly.  It  has  been  rung  over 
and  over  again,  in  the  ears  of  every  member  of  the  cabinet,  and  of  eve- 
ry member  of  Congress.  It  has  really  made  Mr.  Greene  a  martyr  in 
the  Jackson  cause,  and  rejoiced  distant  partisans  much  that  he  has 
been  so  amply  indemnified.  This  is  a  high  pretension— let  us  examine 

it  a  little.  .     .  .  ,*  , 

The  city  government  invited  ofTers  for  their  printing,  with  an  under- 
standino-  that  they  should  have  it  who  would  do  it  on  the  lowest  terms. 
Mr.  Gr?ene  offered  lower  than  any  one  else,  and  it  was  refused  him. 
This  is  conclusive  proof  that  he  was  a  martyr  for  Jackson  ;  oh,  cer- 
tainly—it was  not  possible  there  could  be  any  other  objection  to  Mr. 

JYathU.  Greene.  .  ,.    -,        .,  i. 

Whether  this  course,  in  its  spirit,  is  to  be  blind   to  the  persons  who 
make  the  offers,  and  to  disregard  altogether  their  skill,  character,  fide  - 
ity  and  probable  compliance  with  their  contract,  or  otherwise,  I  will 
not   stop  now   to   consider.     Nor  will   I    ask,   either,    whether  public 
officers   cannot,  with  propriety,  resort -to  this  mode  of  invitmg  com- 
petition,  without    being   compelled   to    employ   men-  whom,   in  their 
fudgment,  they  deem  to  be  disreputable.     In  point  of  fact  no  body  of 
men  were  ever  more  grossly,  scurrilously,  indecently,  and  outrageous- 
ly  abused,  than  the  city   authorities   were,   by  this  same    Statesman, 
which  did  their  printing.     I  know  not  what  others  may  thmk  ;  but  for 
myself,  and  I  speak  it  without  hesitation,  the  party  which  can  degrade 
itself  so  far,  in  order  to  save  a  few  dollars,  as  to  employ  levilers  which 
would  disgrace  Billingsgate,  are  only  less  contemptible  than  tlie  worse 
than  Billingsgate  revilers,  who  seek  the  patronage  of  those  whom  they 

abuse.  ...  a.       a 

It  may  be,  however,  that  to  abuse  the  city  authorities  was  to  ad- 
vance the  cause  of  Gen.  Jackson  ;  and  to  lose  the  printing  of  those 
authorities  for  such  abuse,  was  suffering  martyrdom  in  Gen.  Jackson  s 
cause  The  writer  does  not  dispute  this  reasonable  position,  but  only, 
mdtlestly,  suggests  his  difficulty   of  following  out  the  premises  to  the 

conclusion.  ,  ,     ,,        -,  ,  „„ 

But  was  the  abuse  of  themselves,  even,  the  cause  why  the  city  au- 
thorities would  not  suffer  Mr.  Greene  to  be  their  prmter  ?     Let  us  look 


58 

at  the  evidence  of  one  of  the  city  officers,  under  oatly,  in  a  court  of 
justice,  on  the  trial  of  an  indictment.  I  refer  to  that  of  Mr.  Hayden, 
the  auditor  of  the  city.  See  trial  of  David  Lee  Child,  for  a  libel  on 
John  Keyes,  page  40. 

"  William  Hayden  Esq.  City  Auditor.  Some  bills  of  Messrs.  True  &. 
Greene  against  the  Commonwealth  for  printing  were  put  into  my  hands 
by  Mr.  Child,  and  I  made  a  general  examination  of  them  ;  but  could 
not  make  it  thorough  because  I  had  not  the  work  before  me  which 
they  had  executed.  I  compared  their  charges  with  their  contracts.  / 
found  that  in  charging,  there  ivas  a  general  disregard  of  the  rates  in  their 
proposals.  There  was  a  charge  of  ^150  for  printing  I oOO  election  ser- 
mons, which  should  have  been  $T5.  There  toas  a  deduction  by  the  com- 
mittee of  ^25  ;  bid  the  charge  was  still  ^50  too  high. — There  was  a 
charge  for  blank  leaves  put  into  Rules  and  Orders  in  each  year.  In 
1826,  the  proposal  in  the  contract  icas  Rules  and  Orders  at  so  much  per 
copy  "  complete,'^''  and  yet  the  extra  charge  was  continued.  In  general  the 
bills  of  T'rue  and  Greene  were  made  out  without  nmch  reference  to  their 
contracts. 

Cross  examined  by  the  Solicitor  General.  I  never  called  on  True  and 
Greene,  VKtr  on  the  committee  for  explanation  of  these  bills.  Mr.  Child 
did  not  apply  to  me  first.  I  asked  him  whether  he  had  ever  compared 
True  and  Green's  bills  with  their  proposals,  observing,  that  ij  they  serv- 
ed the  Commomvealth  as  thty  had  done  the  city,  they  paid  very  little  re- 
gard to  their  contracts.  True  and  Greene  have  had  the  city  printing, 
but  not  in  the  two  last  years." 

Here  then,  I  suppose,  is  no  objection  to  Mr.  Greene  !  He  makes 
the  lowest  proposals,  obtains  the  printing,  but  little  regards  his  propos- 
als in  his  charges.  The  offer  must  be  taken,  because  it  is  the  loicest, 
although  the  work  when  done,  may  be  the  highest.  A  man  must  be 
employed  if  he  bids  well,  although  he  pays  very  little  regard  to  his 
contract.  Surely  the  loss  of  t4ie  city  printing  was  martyrdom  for  Gen. 
Jackson,  and  deserves,  eminently  deserves,  the  Boston  post  office  ^ 
But  a  single  question  about  Mr.  Greene,  and  I  have  done  for  the  pres- 
ent. Did  Mr.  Greene  declare  to  a  gentleman  of  high  standing  and  un- 
impeachable  veracity,  that  the  loss  of  the  city  printing  was  the  object 
he  tried  to  effect  ?  I  can  name  such  a  gentleman.  But  [{suffering  for 
a  cause  be  martyrdom,  Mr.  Greene,  why  then  to  inflict  the  injury  on 
yourself  must  be  more  than  martyrdom.  It  was  self  devotion  for  Gen. 
Jackson.     Hurra  for  the  martyr  !  COLUMBUS. 

COLUMBUS  NO.  XHL 

The  appointments  of  Mr.  Andrew  Dunlap  and  Mr.  David  Henshaw, 
I  have  said,  excited  nearhf  as  much  astonishment  and  regret,  as  that 
of  Mr.  Nathl.  (Jrocne.  I  have  never  heard  a  statement  of  the  grounds 
on  which  3Ir.  Dunlap  was  appointed.  As  a  professional  man,  his  es- 
timation by  the  bar  of  Suffolk  he  is  probably  well  aware  of,  and  of 
which  the  curious  may  be  informed  by  inquiry  of  any  of  its  respectable 


59 

members.  The  extent  of  his  sacrifices  in  the  Jackson  cause,  I  have 
never  heard  stated — nor,  indeed,  a  rumor  that  he  had  made  any,  un- 
less the  subscription  of  a  sixth  part  of  the  loan  of  six  thousand  dollars 
to  Duff  Green,  long. after  the  contest  was  ended,  and  near  the  time 
when  the  offices  were  expected  to  be  conferred,  be  a  sacrifice.  This 
was  no  doubt  hazarded  for  the  good  of  the  cause,  and  without  any  pos- 
sible motive  of  self  interest;  and  if  any  profit  has  grown  out  of  it,  it 
must  have  been  entiiely  accidental,  and  unexpected  by  Mr.  Dunlap. 

This  gentleman  also  writes  and  makes  speeches.    Mr.  John  Adams' 
nose,  was  at  once  the  main  subject    of  his   wit  and    his   services  ;  and 
this,   with   an   occasionally  novel   and    brilliant    allusion   to  monarchy 
and  gag  laws,   and  a  few  sneers  on  ''  good  society,"  were  the  sum  of 
his  splendid    political  discussions.       The  gentleman    is  so  remarkably 
modest  in  regard  to  his   own  praise,  that  he  seldom   is  pleased    with  a 
notice  of  his  professional  efforts,  and  is  quite  overpowered  if  one  of  his 
set  speeches   should  appear  in  the  public  prints.     I  suppose,  however, 
tliat  his  main  pretension  v/as  his  consistent  and  disinterested  support  of 
Gen.  Jackson. — His  fidelity   is  indeed  justly  a  subject  of  wonder,  for 
in  the   last   five  years    he    has  not  avowed  a  preference  for  more  than 
ybii?' candidates — a  very  moderate  number,  indeed,  considering  the  host 
which  the  people  of  the   United   States  have  had  offered  for  their  suf- 
frao;es,  for  the  most  elevated  trust  in  their  gift.     The   support   he  ren- 
dered to  his  first  candidate,  whom  he  facetiously    calls  John   the    2d, 
was  magnanimous  in  the  extreme,  considering  his  antipathy  to  royalty, 
and  the  house  of  Braintree  ;  and  his   adherence   to   Mr.    Adams,    until 
Mr.  Crawford's  prospects  appeared  much  the  better,    a   degree  of  self 
devotion  not  common  among  politicians.     Although  Mr.   Clay  was  his 
second  avowed  favorite,    his   consenting    to   waive  his    cause    for  the 
stronger  one  of  Crawtbrd,  was  as  creditable  to  his  sagacity,  as  the  in- 
tention of  bringing  it  forward  again  when  Mr.  Clay's  chance  might  be 
the  best   in  the  field,  was   to  his  generous  disinterestedness.     In  what 
way   he  got  on  the  Jackson  ground,    it    is  impossible  for  the  writer  to 
imagine,  unless  he  fell  from  one   of  Mr.  Adams'  "  light  houses  in  the 
skies."     His  exceedino^  dislike  to  a  change  of  candidates  was  perhaps 
the  only   reason  why  Mr.  Calhoun  did  not  come  in  for  a   share  of  his 
preference  ;   but  to  make  atonement  for  an  omission  at  which,  certain- 
ly, Mr,  Calhoun  might   have   some   reason  to  complain,  it  is  supposed 
that  he   will  prefer   him  hereatter,  if  the  government  should  happen  to 
devolve  on  the  vice  president,  or  the  united  and  preponderating  strength 
of  the  Jackson  party  should  support  him  as  its  candidate. 

Mr.  Henshaw's  claims  are  indeed  of  a  most  opposite  character.  His 
generous  and  disinterested  sacrifices  are  truly  almost  incomprehensi- 
ble. No  man  before  ever  hazarded  so  much  money,  with  such  an 
avowed,  insurmountable  dislike  of  office.  The  utter  incapability  of  his 
nature  to  consent  to  receive  any  recompense  for  what  was  dictated  by 
mere  patriotism,  and  generous  zeal,  is  notorious  to  the  country — or  at 
least  ought  to  be  so  ;  for  it  was  in  every  body's  mouth  as  well  as  his 
own.  His  consenting  to  receive  the  collectorship  here,  was  in  itself 
one  of  the  most  reluctant  sacrifices  which  a  man  could  be  called  on  to 


60 

make  for  his  country  ;  for  the  profits  of  his  drug  shop  might  be  as  much, 
or  more  ;  the  occupation,  certainly,  was  not  less  dignified,  and  the  re- 
ceipt of^  hoih  cihsohdcly  impossihh.  His  only  objection  to  the  post  of- 
fice being  given  to  Mr.  Nathaniel  Greene,  was,  tliat  Mr.  Greene  was 
largely  his  debtor,  and  though  the  payment  of  the  debt  did  not  depend 
on  the  appoin.tment,  yet  the  time  of  payment  would.  To  have  it 
thou<Tht  possible,  that  the  refunding  of  loans,  made  for  so  many  years 
in  the  pursuit  of  his  political  promotion,  until,  by  degrees,  the  amount 
became  large,  could  have  been  an  object  with  so  generous  a  patriot, 
distressed  him  beyond  measure,  and  made  Mr.  Greene's  appointment 
almost  as  unwelcome  as  his  own.  And  what  is  still  more  remarkable, 
out  of  the  richest  class  of  offices  dependent  upon  the  collector,  that  of 
weio"hers  and  guagers,  he  has  made  tico  removals,  and  has  given  only 
one  to  a  brother — and  him  he  did  not  send  into  the  country  for,  more 
than  forty  miles  !  His  enemies  indeed  might  say  that  to  take  his  broth- 
ers out  of  his  old  lucrative  business,  would  have  made  them  incur  a 
sacrifice  almost  equal. to  his  own.  This,  however,  is  mere  malice — the 
true  reason  was,  undoubtedly,  his  generous  devotion  to  the  interests  of 
the  party  which  brought  him  forward.  Of  Mr.  Henshaw's  other  claims 
I  can  say  little.  It  has  been  publicly  said,  and  not  contradicted,  that 
up  to  a  late  period  in  the  Jackson  campaign,  he  entertained  for  the 
president  the  most  unfavorable  opinions,  and  denounced  his  conduct  in 
unmeasured  terms.  When  he  changed  his  opinion,  or  whether  he 
ever  did  change  it,  1  do  not  know  ;  but  apprehend,  if  he  were  request- 
ed to  show  an  article  written  during  the  campaign  favorable  to  the 
president's  character,  he  might  find  it  somewhat  difficult.  Of  any  po- 
litical writings,  except  a  Quixotic  attack  on  one  of  the  greatest  wri- 
ters of  the  age,  Dr.  Channing,  which  resembles,  in  more  than  one 
point,  the  scene  of  the  wind-mill,  I  have  no  knowledge,  unless  indeed 
it  be  of  some  floating  paragraphs,  en  the  Hartford  Convention,  the  gag 
law,  house  of  Braintree,  kc. 

But  the  most  remarkable  circumstance  in  the  history  of  Mr.  Hen- 
shaw,  is  his  extreme  repugnance  to  receive  the  collectorship  of  Bos- 
ton. His  pledge  while  a  candidate  for  Elector,  that  he  would  not  take 
the  custom-house,  if  it  were  offisred  him,  might  well  be  more  natural 
than  sincere,  but  his  unwillingness  to  receive  the  appointment  when  it 
was  about  being  conferred,  could  net  have  been  dissembled,  and  is  an 
unanswerable  proof  of  his  disinterestedness.  His  misrepresentations 
of,  and  opposition  to,  all  other  candidates,  do  not  render  his  sincerity 
suspicious,  because  he  might  honestly  doubt  whether  any  other  but 
himself  could  be  found  qualified  for  the  place. — Upon  balancing  all  the 
testimony  on  the  subject,  we  must  come  to  the  conclusion  that  his  ac- 
ceptance of  the  office  was  unequivocal  evidence  of  his  disinterested- 
ness and  patriotism  ;  and  that  his  systematic  attacks  upon  Col.  Orne, 
for  so  many  years,  to  get  him  out  of  the  way,  was  simply  from  his  zeal 
that  the  duties  of  the  oftice  should  be  faithfully  performed.  There  is 
only  one  circumstance,  and  this  of  no  great  moment,  whicli  it  is  difficult 
to  reconcile,  and  this  may  not  probably  be  true.  I  give  it  as  I  heard 
it,  not  vouching  for  the  truth,  but  ready  to  name  informants,  if  it  be  de- 


61 

nied.     It  comes  a  good  deal  in  the  shape  of  rumor,  but  rumor  that  keeps 
its  ground  in  spite  of  time  and  notoriety. 

While  we,  simple  souls,    of  the    Jackson  republican  party,    were 
quietly  at  home,    abstaining   from  persecuting  the  president  as  soon 
as  he  commenced  his  duties,  and  waiting  in  full  confidence  that  the 
changes  would   be  cautiously  made,  arid  the  claims  deliberately  ex- 
amined, Mr.  Henshaw  was  at  Washington,    it  is    said,    pressing  for 
the  appointment  of  somebody.      Mr.   Francis  Baylies  was  also,  it  is 
said,     at    Washington,    not    applying    for    the    office,    but  imUing  to 
take  it.      It  would    seem  that   Mr.   Henshaw  became  much  alarmed 
by  an  impression  that  the   president  was  on  the  point  of  nominatintr 
Mr.  Baylies  to  the  senate.       How  much  he  and  the  other  members  of 
the  Statesman  committee,  wrote,  and  what  terrible  things  they  said,  at 
this  alarming  conjuncture,  we  know  only  by  a  rumor  still  more  vague. 
But  if  this  is  to  be  credited,  they  swore  more  terribly  than  our   '^  army 
in  Flanders." — It  happened  that  Mr.  Josiah  Dunham,  rope  maker,  of 
Boston,  was  also  there,  and,  at  this  most  perilous  moment,  was  waited 
on  by  Mr.  Henshaw,  almost  out  of  breath,  as  the  story  goes^   claiminor 
his  instantaneous  aid,  if  he  ever  meant  to  render  it,   in    procuring  the 
collectorship.      The  president   would  act   upon    the    subject  the    very 
next   morning,    and  Baylies  would    have  it.     Mr.  Dunham  was  urged 
to  procure  a  certain  New  England  senator   to   recommend  Mr.    Hen- 
shaw, but  Mr.  Dunham  chooses,  before  moving  for  3lr.   Flenshaw,    to 
stipulate  for  one  or  two  conditions.     W^ould  Mr.  Henshaw,   if  he  was 
appc'inted  collector,  give  certain  subordinate  stations  to    three    of  Mr. 
Dunham's  friends — to  wit,  Dr.  Stevens,  John  D.  Dyer,  and  Abraham 
H.  Quincy  .?    To  this,  it  is  said,  Mr.  Henshaw   assented.     Now  it  so 
happened   that    Mr.  Quincy  was  related  to  a  member  of  the  family  of 
the  senator  in  question,  and  Mr.  Dunham  informs  that  member  that  if 
Mr.  Henshaw  should  happen  to  get  the  place,    Mr.   Quincy  would  be 
provided  tor.      On  this  suggestion,  it  is  said,  the  member  procures  the 
required  letter  from  the  senator.      Mr.  Baylies  does  not  obtain  the  ap- 
pointment, and  Mr.  Henshaw,  ultimately,  does.     Whether  this  be  true 
or  not,  I  believe  there  is  no  doubt  of  the  fact,  that  Dr.  Stevens,  and 
Mr.  John  D.  Dyer,  have  obtained   places   under   Mr.    Henshaw — ana 
whether  Mr.  Quincy  would,  or  would  not,  if  the  president  had  not  put 
a  stop  to  further  removals,  is  the  question.     I  cannot   swear,    exactly, 
on  that  subject,  but  in  a  loose    way  I  may   say    that  I  know   that    this 
member  of  the  good  senator's  family  has,  not  very  long  since,  informed 
Mr.  Quincy,  that  the  member  was   much    surprised    that    his   appoint- 
ment had  not  been  obtained,    as  it  was  so  arrano-ed  at   Washintrton,    if 
Mr.  Henshaw  were  successful.     ^'  Upon  this  hint,"  Mr.  Quincy  spake, 
and  called,  by  letter,  Mr.  Henshaw's  attention  to  the    promise.     This 
not  being  effectual,  he  next  waited   on  him  and   demanded   the    fulfil- 
ment  of  it.     Whether  it  was  denied,  evaded,  or   admitted,  I  have  not 
yet  satisfactorily    learnt.     Now  this  certainly  shows  no    disposition  to 
bargain  for  an  office,  on  the  part  of  anybody,  nor  even  any  wish  to  ob- 
tain one,  on  the  part  of  Mr.    Henshaw  ;  for  it  might  be  that  he  would 
receive  it  still,  very  reluctantly  ;  but   it   does  look  at  least  a  little  like 


62 

solicitation  for  an  office,  though  no  doubt  it  was  to  secure  the 
proper  discharge  of  its  duties,  and  altogether  for  the  benefit  of  his 
party. 

There  is  one  other  anecdote,  which  has  been  related  to  me,  and 
which  I  believe,  but  of  course,  not  on  my  own  knowledge.  I  have 
however  taken  all  the  pains  to  ascertain  the  correctness  of  this,  as  of 
all  matters  that  I  assert  on  the  authority  of  others  ;  and  I  am  satisfied 
of  the  respectability  of  the  parties  who  have  related  it  to  me,  and  of  their 
opportunities  to  possess  correct  information.  AVhen  it  is  properly  de- 
nied, and  the  evidence  is  called  for,  I  shall  give  up  my  authors.  It  il- 
lustrates, not  exactly  Mr.  Henshaw's  unwillingness  to  accept  of  office, 
but  that  strict  integrity  of  intention,  and  impartiality  of  feeling,  of 
which  he  boasts  in  his  late  letter  to  the  president  of  the  United  States. 
The  passage  is,  however,  worthy  of  being  giveji  ia  his  own  words. 

••  In  discharging  the  duties  of  the  office  confided  to  my  care,  my  object  has  been 
to  obtain  trusty  and  efficient  olficers.  The  removals  have  not  been  confined  to  po- 
litical opponents,  and  so  far  from  being  operated  upon  by  feelings  of  political  in- 
tolerayice,  there  are  now  in  office  double  the  number  of  pohtical  opponents  that  there 
were  of  political  friends  when  I  received  my  commission.  I  have  endeavoured  to 
divest  myself  of  all  personal  considerations,  of  every  feeling  of 
PREJUDICE  OR  PARTIALITY,  and  to  loolv  soIely  to  promoting  the  public  interest, 
and  the  credit  and  honor  of  your  administration." 

I  have  already  spoken  of  the  most  incomprehensible  removal,  in  the 
most  insulting  manner,  of  William  Little  Esq.  from  the  office  of  ap- 
praiser. I  have  ascribed  it  solely  to  the  intrigues  of  Mr.  David  JJen- 
fehaw,  and  his  patriotic  co-adjutors  of  the  Statesman  partj^  Mr.  Lit- 
tle's appointment  was  conferred  by  the  president  and  senate  of  the 
United  States.  No  one  ever  yet  heard  a  complaint,  that  he  did  not 
discharo-e  the  duties  of  his  place  in  a  most  faithful  and  acceptable  man- 
ner, to  the  people  and  to  the  government.  Mr.  Little  was  a  man  of 
education,  intelligence,  and  of  the  highest  respectability — of  manners 
so  courteous  and  gentlemanly,  that,  from  the  infrequency  of  their  be- 
ing Dossessed  in  these  late  money  making  times,  they  are  referred  to 
a  distinct  class  ;  and  those  who  possess  them  are  not  unfrequently  char- 
acterised as  "  gentlemen  of  the  old  school."  He  was  the  fellow  labor- 
er and  sutlerer  with  Washington  at  Valley  Forge,  was  of  the  party  which 
elevated  and  sustained  Thomas  Jeffisrson,  was  friendly  to  the  election 
of  Gen.  Jackson,  and  was,  as  it  has  been  several  times  before  assert- 
ed, the  head  of  the  most  decided  Jackson  family  in  New  England. 
But,  most  unfortunately  for  him,  he  belonged  to  the  Jackson  republi- 
can party,  and  was  related  by  marriage  to  Col.  Orne.  To  compare 
such  a  man  as  David  Henshaw  with  William  Little,  were  almost  as 
great  an  outrage  to  the  latter,  as  to  compare  a  clerk  in  one  of  the  de- 
partments to  the  president,  would  be  to  General  Jackson.  That  the 
removal  of  William  Little  was  Mot  an  intentional  act  of  the  president, 
we  never  for  one  moment  doubted — he  is  incapable  of  such  an  act. 
Mr.  Little  however  was  removed,  and  under  marks  of  greater  indignity 
than  have  ever,  perhaps,  occurred  before  under  the  government  of  this 
country.     The  universal  astonishment  this  measure  e.xcited  cannot  be 


63 

described.  He  was  removed  to  make  way  for  a  Mr.  Lincoln.  Of 
this  latter  gentleman  I  had  never  before  heard.  That  the  Jackson 
party  of  this  place  contained  a  man  of  the  name  of  Lincoln,  had  nev- 
er reached  my  ears.  My  political  associates  were  as  uninformed  on 
the  subject  as  myself  It  was  in  vain  to  inquire,  for  no  one  seemed 
to  know  him  better  than  ourselves.  Some  one  hinted  that  he  had  once 
received  a  ticket  for  a  Jackson  celebration,  and  attended.  Another, 
that  his  name  was  Lincoln,  and  Mr.  John  K.  Simpson  was  connected 
with  a  Lincoln  family,  by  marriage.  But  the  anecdote  1  have  refer- 
red to  throws  some  light  on  the  subject,  and  I  will  proceed  to  give  it, 
as  it  comes  to  my  ears. 

Not  long  after  the  appointment  of  Mr.  Lincoln  as  appraiser,  the 
property  of  the  firm  of  Lincoln  &.  McAffee,  of  which  the  appraiser  was 
a  partner,  was  sold  at  public  auction,  the  tirm  being  insolvent.  Some 
one  of  the  bystanders  remarked,  "  Mr.  Lincoln  has  been  very  fortu- 
nate, in  the  moment  of  his  troubles,  in  being  appointed  to  a  very  res- 
pectable office."  "  How,  under  heaven,"  said  another,  "  came  he  to 
be  appointed  ;  he  was  no  more  a  Jackson  man  than  I  am  .''"  "  It  was 
curious  enough,"  was  the  reply.  "  Not  many  months  ago,  Mr.  Lin- 
coln was  at  my  house  at  a  whist  party,  and  the  conversation  turned  up- 
on the  contemplated  visit  of  Gen.  Jackson  to  the  north — the  gentlemen 
present  were  much  opposed  to  Gen.  Jackson,  and  some  pretty  sharp 
expressions  were  uttered  on  the  occasion.  "  If  he  should  come,"  said 
the  to  be  appraiser,  ^'I  will  be  one  of  a  party  to  give  him  a  coat  of  tar 
and  feathers. ^^ 

Some  of  my  frends  have  taken  pains  to  inform  themselves  of  the  au- 
thenticity of  this  anecdote,  and  are  so  satisfied  of  it  that  I  feel  author- 
ised to  state  it.  They  learned  further  that  Mr.  Lincoln  never  so  far 
insulted,  or  thought  of  insulting  the  man  whom  he  had  been  willing  to 
tar  and  feather,  as  to  apply  to  him  for  an  office.  That,  on  the  contra- 
ry, his  attention  was  first  called  to  the  subject  by  being  waited  on  by 
Mr.  David  Henshaw,  who  oflered  him  his  support  to  procure  for  him 
the  place,  muck  to  his  surprise  ;  and  on  giving  a  wondering  consent, 
twelve  days  afterwards  he  received  his  commission. 

What  an  extent  of  devotion  is  here  shown,  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Hen- 
shaw, to  the  Jackson  party — how  anxious  to  give  the  administration  in 
power  the  support  of  its  friends — "that  it  should  rely  for  support  on  its 
friends,  and  not  on  its  opponents  .'"  How  honest  his  indignation  against 
that  class  of  people,  who,  while  the  president  was  ^'raising  an  imper- 
ishable monument  of  his  fame,  on  the  banks  of  the  mighty  Mississippi," 
"  were  singing  Te  Deums  in  honor  of  the  victories  of  our  enemies, 
and  resolving  that  it  was  unbecoming  a  religious  and  moral  people  to 
rejoice  in  our  own  !" — Who,  now,  will  doubt,  thou  dignified,  generous, 
disinterested  collector  of  Boston,  thy  honest  attachment  to  the  president, 
or  zeal  for  his  cause  and  his  party  ?  How  admirably  you  divested 
yourself  of  ptrso?i«/  considerations — of  ever ij  feeling  of  prejudice  or  jjar- 
iialily  !  Had  you  any  regard  but  for  the  "public  interest,  and  the 
CREDIT  and  HONOR  of  (Gen.  Jackson's)  administration?"  Who  can 
doubt  that  hostility  to  Col,  Orne  was  never  one  moment  in  your  mind, 


64 

in  procuring  this  indignity  to  "William  Little  ?  What !  a  man,  who 
could  reward  the  bitterest  enemy  of  the  president,  would  he  not  forgive 
his  own  ?  With  such  a  zeal  as  Mr.  Henshaw's  for  the  "honor  and 
credit"  of  Gen  Jackson's  administration,  it  were  easier  to  forgive  a 
thousand  personal  enemies,  than  one  of  the  government — and  such  an 
enemy  of  the  government,  too — it  was  an  effort  of  sublime  magnanimi- 
ty,— of  unparalleled  christian  meekness  and  charity  !  Gracious  God — 
what  is  that  influence  in  the  cabinet  which  has  induced  the  president 
to  sanction  this  measure  ?  COLUMBUS. 


COLUBMUS,  NO.   XIV. 

Among  the  means  resorted  to  by  the  Statesman  party  to  effect 
their  appointment  to  offices,  were  popular  recommendations  from  this 
quarter,  and  the  aid  of  the  Jackson  members  of  Congress  from  New- 
England. 

There  are,  perhaps,  no  sources  of  influence,  against  which  the  exe- 
cutive authority  of  the  nation  should  be  more  on  its  guard,  or  which 
it  should  view  with  more  jealousy,  than  popular  recommendations  to 
distinguished  local  appointments.  The  national  constitution,  for  the 
wisest  of  purposes,  has  made  executive  officers  dependent  alone  on  the 
president  and  senate.  They  are  selected  to  aid  the  president  in  the 
administration  of  the  complicated  powers  of  the  government,  and  they 
form  no  unimportant  part  of  the  executive  authority  itself  To  enlight- 
en the  appointing  power  to  the  intelligent  discharge  of  this  important 
duty,  is  the  proper  office  of  all  recommendations  ;  and  none  should  be 
regarded, — none  can  with  propriety  be  offered  or  received, — but  such 
as  convey  a  knowledge  of  the  character  of  claimants,  of  the  wishes  of 
the  people  who  are  most  immediately  interested  in  the  duties  to  be  per- 
formed, and  of  the  interests  of  the  local  parties  from,  among  whom  the 
selection,  by  the  established  practices  under  our  political  institutions, 
and  party  contests,  is  to  be  made.  Any  influence  about  local  appoint- 
ments exerted  by  members  of  congress  from  states  distant  from  those 
where  the  offices  are  to  be  filled,  is  so  obviously  improper,  that  the  ex- 
ecutive ought  to  view  it  as  an  impertinent  interference  with  its  pecu- 
liar duties.  To  the  executive  must  be  communicated  the  information 
which  is  to  direct  it  in  the  discharge  of  its  duties — it  is  the  centre  to 
which  all  information  on  the  subject  tends — and  the  branch  of  the  gov- 
ernment not  only  best  adapted  to  obtain  the  requisite  information,  but 
the  only  one  competent  to  weight  it — as  some  portion  of  it,  and  per- 
haps the  most  important,  is  derived  from  sources  necessarily  confiden- 
tial in  their  nature.  It  is  to  reverse  the  natural  course  of  proceedings, 
and  to  confound  the  proper  functions  of  the  government,  lor  the  legis- 
lative branch  to  instruct  the  executive  in  rcjrard  to  its  selection  of  exe- 
cutive  officers.  It  is  for  the  party  possessing  the  least  means  of  in- 
formation, to  direct  that  which  possesses  the  most,  and  to  enlighten  the 
source  from  which  alone  it  can,  by  the  ordinary  course  of  events,  and 
by  the  healthful  operations  of  the  public  functions,  be  enlightened. 


65 

A  similar  interference  by  a  public  printer  is  still  more  objectionable. 
Not  only  is  this  officer  not  placed  by  the  constitution  in  the  relation  of 
an  official  adviser  to  the  president,  but  his  interference  betrays  a  want 
of  respect  for  the  constituted  agent  of  the  people.     It  is  an  attempt,  on 
the  face  of  it,  to  degrade  the  office  of  the  supreme  magistrate  of  the  na- 
tion.    As  the  public  printer  is  not  entrusted  with  the  appointing  power, 
he  is  not  consequently  the  object  to  which  requisite  information  is  com- 
municated— and  even  if  vvithout  adequate  means,  he  could  be  suppos- 
ed to  obtain  that  knowledge  of  local  parties,  and  personal  qualifications, 
which  could  enable  him  to  advise  the  president,  his  want  of  official  re- 
sponsibility would  leave  him  without  that  security  for  fidelity  and  integ- 
rity, which  our  institutions  attribute  to  the  constitutional  officers  of  the 
government.     The  motives  which  influence  him  may  not   be,  solely, 
the  good  of  the  people,  and  the  honor  and  reputation  of  the  chief  ma- 
gistrate.    They  may  not  be  the  interests  of  an  existing  administration, 
but  of  one  which  he  is  striving  to  build  up — not  of  the  actual,  but  some 
future  president.     And  it  is  at  least  possible  that  he  may  be  influenced 
by  considerations  much  more  personal  and  interested — by  those  of  pri- 
vate advantage — or  money.     The  party  which  attempt  to  influence  the 
president  through  the  public  printer,  offer  an  indignity  to  him,  and  an 
outrage  to  the  rights  of  the  people,  which  merit  distrust,  repulse  and 
censure.     They  cannot  respect  the  government  or  public,  and,  in  all 
probability,  build  their  hopes  of  success,  not  on  merit,  but  intrigue. 

The  attempt  to  carry  an  appointment  by  popular  recommendation,  is 
again  deficient  in  proper  respect  for  the  office    where  the  power  of  ap- 
pointment is  placed  by  the  constitution.     To  executive  intelligence  and 
discrimination  the  important  trust  is  confided — and  the  popular  suffrag- 
es are  neither  deemed  by  our  political  institutions,  nor  are  they,  in  fact, 
the  suitable  depository  of  the  power.     The  attempt  to  carry  an  appoint- 
ment by  popular  recommendation  is  virtually  an  attack  on  the  execu- 
tive prerogative,  and  wif.hholds  the  confidence  which  ought,  as  our  in- 
stitutions supposes,  to  be  placed  in  the  chief  magistrate.     It  is  virtually 
to  wrest  from  the  executive   its  appropriate   functions,  and  to   confer 
them  on  the    people,  where,  by   the  constitution,  they  are  not  placed. 
It  is  even  worse  than  this,  for  popular  sufiVages  are  always  cast  under 
a  strong  sense  of  public  duty  and  responsibility — while  popular  recom- 
mendations are  seldom  given  with  deliberation — still  more  seldom  free- 
ly and  unsolicited,  and  never  with  a  belief  that  they  remove  from  the 
executive  the  full  measure  of  its  responsibility.     They  are,  in  fact,  too 
frequently  an  act  to  which  parties  attach  no  manner  of  importance, 
which  they  deem  to  be  wholly  ineffectual,  and  consent  to,  not  from  a 
conviction  of  justice  or  propriety,  but  as  the  most  easy  means  of  extrica- 
tion  from  vexatious  and  embarrassing  solicitations.     "  A   long  list  of 
names,"  said  an  old  and  experienced  senator  to  the  writer,  "  always 
renders  me   suspicious   of  a  candidate  for  office — he  shows,  by  the 
act  of  presenting   it,  that  he    dares   not   trust   his   qualifications  and 
claims  to  the  executive  intelligence   and  discrimination,   but  relies  on 
the  popular  favor  of  those  among  the  people,  whose  motives  for,  or 
sincerity   in  their  interference  cannot  I)e   known — whose  interest   in 


66 

the  prosperity  of  the  administration  may  be  frequently  doubted,  and 
whose  competency  to  judge  of  the  qualifications  of  candidates,  may 
be,  and  often  is,  exceedingly  questionable.  Rely  upon  it,  sir,  such 
means  will  never  be  resorted  to  with  eiTect  under  the  administration  of 
Gen.  Jackson." 

Scarcely  was  the  result  of  the  presidential  contest  rendered  proba- 
ble, when  the  Statesman  candidates  began  to  cast  about  for  popular 
recommendations.  It  is  not  material  lor  my  purpose  to  consider  mi- 
nutely the  character  of  the  recommendations  they  obtained.  It  may 
be  sufficient,  in  general,  to  say,  that  they  expressed  neither  the  pub- 
lic sentiment  of  this  place,  nor  that  of  the  most  respectable  supporters 
of  the  president — they  embraced  all  who  could  sign  their  names,  many 
apprentices  and  children,  and  in  some  cases  actually  icomen — but  as 
the  sex  of  the  fairer  portion  of  creation  is  frequently  indicated  by  their 
names,  this  was  a  source  which  they  were  ultimately  compelled  to  re- 
ject. It  is  probably  unnecessary  lo  remark  that  this  was  a  course  to 
which  the  members  of  the  Jackson  republican  party  could  not  de- 
scend— they  heard  of  Mr.  Nath'l.  Greene's  "  round  robins''^  with  a 
smile,  and  rested  their  pretensions  on  indisputable  claims  to  respecta- 
bility which,  it  was  supposed,  the  government  must  possess  ample 
means  to  learn.  Mr.  Dunlap,  who  "thanked  God  that  he  wanted  no 
office,"  did  not  choose  to  take  his  chance  with  the  public  sentiment 
here,  but  w^ent  to  the  bar  of  a  neighboring  county,  in  which  he  was 
born  and  brought  up,  for  testimony  of  his  former  character  and  quali- 
fications. Whether  or  not  he  wished  that  his  efforts  should  remain  a 
secret,  from  an  apprehension  of  stirring  up  a  competition  which  he 
might  justly  have  dreaded,  I  do  not  know  ;  or  whether  he  thought  that 
the  bar  of  his  own  county  might  have  shrunk  from  backing  his  preten- 
sion to  the  important  legal  office  of  district  attorney  of  this  common- 
wealth ;  but  whatever  was  the  cause,  his  application  w^as  so  managed, 
that  the  disinterested  gentleman  who  "  thanked  God  that  he  wanted  no 
office,  and  would  not  take  any,"  was  actually  appointed  by  the  presi 
dent,  in  the  first  moment  of  his  administration,  and  before  his  fViends 
in  this  quarter,  who  felt  for  his  high  station  a  proper  respect,  had  a 
chance  even  of  laying  their  sentiments  before  him. 

Mr.  Henshaw  rested  his  claims  on  a  diffib'rent  ground.  He  was 
not  to  seek  an  appointment,  but  only  to  consent  to  receive  one  for  the 
gratification  of  the  Jackson  party.  Instead  of  his  own  solicitations, 
he  relied  with  more  confidence  on  the  zeal  of  those  who  had  the 
strongest  personal  interest  in  his  success,  and  they  were  importunate 
enough  to  satisfy  any  modest  desire  in  regard  to  them. 

Any  high  minded  politician  who  reads  this  article,  will  readily  com- 
prehend me  when  I  say,  that  this  solicitation  of  popular  support  was 
one  to  which  a  man  of  elevated  character  would  not  willingly  have  de- 
scended. To  be  an  active  competitor  for  popular  recommt;ndations 
with  such  men  as  Andrew  Dunlap,  Nathaniel,  Greene  and  David  Hen- 
shaw, was  a  degradation  from  which  the  soul  of  every  high  minded  man 
would  instinctively  have  shrunk.  In  regard  to  Col.  Orne,  we  Unow 
that  he  never  thought  of  the  aid  of  such  a  measure,  until  he  had  it  in 


67 

an  indirect,  but  certain  manner  from  the  president,  that  such  recom- 
mendations were  expected.  They  are  at  best  but  of  little  value,  but 
so  far  as  they  are  of  weight  at  all,  those  of  no  candidate,  from  this 
quarter,  we  will  venture  to  assert,  can  compare  with  his.  May  the 
mercy  of  heaven  ordain,  that  in  the  future  administration  of  this  gov- 
ernment, no  reliance  shall  be  again  placed,  in  the  appointment  to  of- 
fices of  an  elevated  character,  upon  the  hollow  and  objectionable  cri- 
terion of  popular  recommendations.  Even  the  most  deadly  enemy  of 
the  administration  who  had  been  placed  by  the  authority  of  the  com- 
monwealth in  the  national  congress,  acting  under  a  sense  of  his  high 
responsibility,  would  have  been,  if  there  were  no  other,  a  much  more 
safe  and  honorable  source  of  information,  from  which  the  character  of 
important  candidates  might  be  known. 

But  of  all  the  influences  exerted  in  the  disposition  of  local  offices 
that  of  Jackson  members  from  the  other  New  England  states,  was 
the  most  objectionable.  In  the  first  place,  their  opportunities  to  obtain 
correct  information  were  the  worst  which  could  possibly  be  imagined. 
Let  the  Jackson  party  in  Ohio  judge  how  it  would  have  been  pleased  to 
have  their  party  character  and  standing;  judged  of  by  the  testimony  of 
members  from  Mississippi,  or  even  Kentucky,  on  whose  territories 
their  own  border,  and  it  may  learn  in  what  way  we  viewed  an  imperti- 
nent interference  with  ours,  of  members  from  Maine.  Can  it  be  possible 
that  an  important  state  like  Massachusetts,  and  a  city  of  such  rank  in 
this  Union  as  Boston,  which  could  contain  a  party  of  sufficient  con- 
sequences to  have  its  claim  for  public  appointments  even  considered, 
yet  should  not  have  men  of  sufficient  intelhgence,  integrity  and  stand- 
ing, to  have  their  views  considered  when  their  own  party  interests 
were  alone  to  be  decided  on  ?  Were  we  bound  to  resort  to  some 
dull  and  bigoted  senator  of  Maine,  or  some  self  sufficient  intriguing 
representative,  to  obtain  certificates  of  our  party  character,  before  we 
could  be  permitted  to  approach  the  executive  ear?  If  such  be  the, 
to  us,  disgraceful  condition  on  which  the  conffdence  of  the  government 
is  to  be  awarded,  thanks  be  to  God  that  we  have  not  received,  and 
never  shall  receive  the  marks  of  its  favor.  As  a  citizen  of  Massachu- 
setts I  protest  against  such  interference,  and  fervently  pray  that  our 
party  may  never  so  lose  sight  of  its  dignity,  and  renounce  its  preten- 
sions to  respect,  as  either  to  solicit  or  even  suffer  such  interference.  Let 
representatives  from  Maine  intrigue  as  they  may,  to  quarter  one  of 
their  prominent  candidates  on  us,  in  order  that  some  Portland  collect- 
orsliip  may  be  left  in  their  grasp, — let  a  New  Hampshire  printer  dis- 
grace the  character  and  influence  of  New  England,  and  give  just  cause 
of  offence  to  the  dignity  of  the  government,  as  much  as  he  may — we 
wash  our  hands  of  any  benefit  to  be  gained  by  such  degrading,  imper- 
tinent, insulting  interference.  It  is  unnecessary  to  say  that  to  such 
means  the  Statesman  party  did,  and  the  Jackson  republican  party  did 
not  resort. 

There  is  one  other  channel  of  influence,  only,  to  which,  at  this  time, 
I  think  proper  to  advert.  From  the  commencement  of  this  administra- 
tion, up  to  the  present  moment,  squads  after  squads  have  proceeded 

9 


68 

from  Boston  to  Washington,  to  solicit  appointments  from  the  govern- 
ment. The  government,  it  is  said,  inquire  of  them  with  some  solicitude, 
of  the  estimation  of  the  appointments  in  this  quarter — of  the  character 
of  parties, — and  of  the  character  of  men.  As  if  information  from  such 
sources  were  entitled  to  confidence  !  In  one  word,  let  this  be  under- 
stood. In  nindij-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred^  these  men  are  either 
openly  or  secretly  agents  of  the  Statesman  party.  The  Jackson  re- 
publican party,  in  its  present  ambiguous  relation  to  the  government, — 
supporting  it,  as  we  do,  with  fidelity,  but  being  regarded  with  suspi- 
cion,— cannot  send  agents  to  Washington.  Information  given  by  such 
men,  is  that  of  one  party  only  in  our  divisions.  Let  them  receive  the 
testimony  of  our  enemies,  if  they  please,  but  save  us,  for  heaven's  sake, 
from  that  of  our  falsely  pretended  friends.  There  are  honorable  men 
among  us,  whose  opinions  the  government  can  at  any  time  command, 
when  they  desire  them  ; — but  these  office  hunters  who  go  there  for 
themselves,  claimino-  to  have  the  confidence  of  the  Jackson  republican 
party,  and  obtaining  from  some  of  its  members,  some  unnnportant  let- 
ters, by  false  pretaices,  while  they  have  secretly  sold  themselves  and 
our  cause  to  the  Statesman  party — let  them  be  objects  of  just  jealousy 
and  suspicion.  Upon  the  information  they  give,  not  the  smallest  reli- 
ance can  be  placed.  They  were,  at  best,  but  insignificant  hangers  on 
of  the  party,  in  its  hour  of  prosperity,  in  the  hopes  of  its  support — but 
shameful  deserters  from  it  in  the  hour  of  its  adversity.  One  of  them,  I 
am  told,  gravely  recommended  to  the  government  the  appointment  of 
Col.  Orne  to  be  navy  agent,  as  if  the  measure  would  either  satisfy  the 
party,  or  be  acceptable  to  him  !  The  character  of  the  party,  and  the 
interests  of  the  government,  can  be  secured  by  no  halfway  measures, 
like  this.  Fraud  and  intrigue  must  be  put  doivn,  or  any  change  in  this 
quarter  will  be  worse  than  useless.  The  same  want  of  confidence  is 
due  to  the  statements  of  others  who  are  sometimes  in  Washington  on 
similar  errands — belonging  to  neither  of  the  parties,  they  may  perhaps 
be  viewed  as  impartial  witne?ses.  But  such  men  want  the  favor  of  those 
who  are  holden  up  to  us  as  the  objects  of  the  government's  confidence 
— of  such  as  are  supposed  to  have  influence,  with  the  cabinet  at  least, 
if  not  with  the  president.  They  speak  such  language  as  it  is  supposed 
the  government  would  be  pleased  to  hear.  If  an  opinion  which  will 
neither  lie,  nor  flatter,  of  the  appointments  in  this  quarter  be  desired, 
let  it  be  sought  in  the  language  of  our  merchants  openly  addressed  to 
the  president, — in  the  ruin  of  ike  Jackson  parly. 

Were  these  faithful  and  unerring  monitors  regarded,  Mr.  Henshaw's 
standing  would  be  well  understood,  and  a  doubt  would  be  no  longer 
felt  as  tc  how  deeply  the  feelings  of  our  citizens  were  outraged  by  the 
appointment  of  Mr.  Nathaniel  Greene.  The  government  would  then 
be  no  longer  deceived  by  the  plau^^ible  contrivances  gotten  up  to  give 
an  appearance  of  popularity  to  Mr.  Greene's  appointment.  Printers 
of  newspapers  may  take  a  deep  interest  in  obtaining  accommodations 
from  the  actual  post  master.  They  may  flatter  him  for  his  favors,  and 
feel  complacency  in  an  appointment  which  injures  the  administration, 
and  advances  the  interests  of  a  rival  candidate.     They  may  speak  fa- 


69 

vourably  of  improved  accommodation,  and  suffer  the  government  to  in- 
fer the  public  satisfaction.  They  may  repel,  with  perfect  justice,  ri- 
diculous charges  of  stopping  letters,  on  the  authority  of  the  president  of 
the  Statesman  4th  of  Alarch  dinner,  to  affect  a  candidate  of  his  own 
recommendation.  And  the  Statesman  may  know  how  to  play  its  game 
by  ascribing  the  indiscreet  charge  to  Jackson  republicans.  But 
printers  will  not,  for  they  dare  not,  say,  in  the  face  of  this  community, 
that  the  appointment  of  Mr.  Greene  did  not  shock  the  public  sentiment 
in  this  quarter,  and  injure, — deeply  injure — the  government. 

The  question  is  not,  whether  Mr.  Greene  has,  or  has  not  kept  back 
letters.  This  is  not  an  easy  matter,  as  long  as  confidence  is  justly 
placed  in  the  character  of  the  respectable  clerks  in  the  post  office. — 
But  a  much  more  important  inquiry  is,  does  his  character  give  him 
claims  to  the  public  confidence  ?  Have  his  political  opponents  any 
grounds  for  confidence  in  his  integrity,  that  he  would  not  abuse  their 
correspondence,  if  he  could  .''  Are  they  in  fact  willing  to  trust  him  ? 
Let  these  questions  be  asked,  and  there  will  be  no  reluctance  in  fur- 
nishing an  answer. 

But  of  what  consequence  is  it  to  the  government  whether  printers  of 
newspapers  be  disproportionably  accommodated  or  not  .'*  The  objec- 
tion to  Mr.  Greene  is,  not  that  printers  may  not  acquiesce,  but  that  his 
appointment  lowers  the  standard  of  qualifications  for  ofiice,  outrages 
the  friends  of  the  president  and  deeply  injures  the  character  of  his  ad- 
ministration. Any  clerk  in  the  post  office — even  a  slave  from  the 
president's  plantation — might,  with  proper  aid,  get  through  with  the 
duties — and  the  weaker  his  hold  on  the  public  sentiment  might  be,  the 
greater  will  be  his  efforts  to  conciliate  public  opinion.  He  would, 
willingly,  for  that  purpose,  sacrifice  a  part  of  the  salary,  for  the  bal- 
ance would  still  be  greater  than  his  greatest  ambition  ever  dared  to 
aspire  to,  or  might  hope,  otherwise,  to  receive.  His  efforts  might  con- 
ciliate some  favor  from  those  for  whose  accommodation  they  are  made, 
but  still  the  "  deep  damnation"  of  the  appointment  remains.  '■'■Haeret 
lateri  lethalis  arimdo.''^  ^^"hy?  '^  ^^ill  still  be  asked,  was  he  selected"? 
Why  were  the  pretensions  of  so  many  better  men  disregarded  in  his 
favor  .''  Why  ousht  the  feelinixs  of  honorable  Jackson  men  to  have 
been  wounded  by  a  selection  so  degrading,  so  insulting,  so  injurious 
to  them  ?  Why  ought  they  to  be  cursed  with  a  measure  which  ruins 
their  party,  and  deeply  injures  an  administration  they  have  striven  so 
ardently  to  elevate  ?  Remember  the  sentiment,  so  much  misrepre- 
sented, of  Colonel  Johnson.  Pvlen  who  have  acquired  appointments 
by  corruption,  ought  not  to  be  kept  in  because  they  may  try  to  dis- 
charge honestly  their  duties.  The  outraged  rights  of  the  people,  the 
purity  of  the  public  institutions,  have  their  claims.  Let  them  act  af- 
terwards ''m//i  the  purity  of  the  angels  of  heaven^^'' — and  still  they  bear 
about  them  the  orginal  sin>  They  must  make  an  atonement;  from  the 
paradise  into  which  they  have  so  thrust  themselves  as  to  violate  the 
sanctity  of  its  holv  ground,  they  must  be  turned  out. 

COLUMBUS. 


70 


COLUMBUS,  NO.  XV. 

[conclusion.] 

We  are  now  arrived  at  the  period  when  the  Jackson  party,  no  long- 
er a  minority,  and  no  longer  in  opposition,  are  in  possession  of  the  gov- 
ernment. The  commencement  of  an  administration  is  a  moment  of 
great  interest  to  a  party,  and  to  the  country.  The  commanding  traits 
in  its  character,  will  ordinarily  be  developed  by  its  earliest  measures  ; 
for  it  is  a  moment  which  custom  has  selected  for  the  avowal  of  its 
principles,  and  men  are  then  associated  in  the  administration  whose 
views  and  character  are  to  influence,  in  an  important  degree,  the 
reputation  of  the  party,  and  the  prosperity  of  the  republic.  It  was  a 
moment  of  deep  interest  to  the  Jackson  parties  here,  for  it  teemed  with 
their  fate. 

The  most  various  and  opposite  opinions  had  been  expressed  of  the 
character  of  Gen.  Jackson.  The  Adams  party  had  denied  to  him  an 
ordinary  share  of  intelhgence  and  integrity,  and  predicted  from  his  ele- 
vation misfortunes  to  his  country,  and  disappointment  to  his  friends. 
The  Jackson  party,  on  the  other  hand,  seemed  bound  to  him  with  an 
intense  degree  of  attachment,  and  evinced  an  enthusiasm  which  had 
been  awakened  by  no  other  candidate  since  the  administration  of 
Washington.  The  doubts  of  the  Adams  party  did  not  shake  the  con- 
fidence of  ours.  We  predicted  an  administration,  in  character  as  ele- 
vated, and  in  the  popular  esteem  as  strong,  as  any  since  the  adoption 
of  the  federal  constitution.  Gen.  Jackson  had  more  personal  fame,  a 
stronger  hold  on  the  popular  feelings,  and  a  greater  independence  of 
party  thraldom,  than  any  other  president,  but  Washington.  His  hold 
on  the  popular  uill  gave  him  more  power,  and  the  character  of  his  par- 
ty gave  him  better  materials,  for  the  construction  of  an  administration 
at  once  solid  and  brilliant,  prosperous  and  renowned,  than  any,  without 
exception,  which  preceded  him.  The  highest  talents,  and  the  highest 
virtues  of  the  country,  might  be  called  to  his  cabinet,  and  were  alrea- 
dy placed  there  by  the  public  sentiment,  and  the  sentiment  of  the  par- 
ty. The  appointments  to  local  offices  would  be  of  men  of  the  higliest 
grade  of  character  ;  the  standard  of  qualifications  for  political  trusts, 
— the  most  infallible  criterion  of  the  strength  and  splendor  of  the  in- 
stitutions of  a  republic,  and  of  the  wisdom  of  an  administration, — would 
be  raised  higher — the  moral  aggregate  force  of  the  adniiiiistration, 
executive  and  ministerial,  would  comprehend  a  larger  amount  of  ta- 
lent and  reputation,  than  the  country  had  before  known.  It  is  the 
prominent  characteristic  of  great  practical  minds,  to  know  men, — to 
employ  as  well  as  to  exhibit  talenis, — to  select  materials  suited  to  the 
grandeur  of  its  own  elevated  conceptions.  Great  commanders  have 
great  officers.  The  fame  of  Napoleon's  generals  was  surpassed  only 
by  his  own.  The  lieutenants  of  Alexander,  after  his  death,  became  the 
sovereigns  of  the  world.  Where  the  proportions  of  greatness  are  ob- 
served in  the  character  of  the  chief,  they  are  observed  in  those  whom 
he  calls  to  associate  with  him.  The  impulse  is  felt  through  the  whole 
machine,  nfilitary  or  political,    which  he  moves, — and    every  grade  is 


71 

stamped  with  a  corresponding-  excellence,  each  part  is  in  harmony 
with  all  the  others, — the  whole  is  the  exhibition  of  all  that  society  can 
furnish,  or  the  institutions  of  government  can  employ,  of  that  which  is 
at  the  same  time  useful  and  honorable, — which  advances  public  pros- 
perity, or  builds  up  political  reputation. 

Gen.  Jackson  was  also  less  embarrassed  by  party  machinery  than 
any  other  candidate  ever  was.  He  was  not  an  exclusive  party  candi- 
date of  any  known  existing  political  party.  lie  was  emphatically  the 
candidate  of  the  people,  of  all  parties,  and  in  defiance  of  party.  From 
the  moment  he  was  brought  forward,  nay,  from  a  period  long  anterior 
to  it,  his  determination  to  regard  the  public  interest  and  honor,  in  con- 
tempt of  the  prejudices  and  watch-words  of  party,  was  so  distinctly 
avowed,  and  so  prominently  claimed,  that  it  lay  at  the  foundation  of 
the  contest  urged  in  his  behalf,  was  the  nucleus  on  which  his  party 
gathered, — was  the  bond  of  union  between  him  and  his  supporters. 

There  was,  besides,  a  principle  which  the  party  thus  built  up  avow- 
ed, and  which,  entering  into  the  very  elements  ot  its  character,  might 
be  regarded  as  its  moral  aim  and  object — it  was  the  protection  and  re- 
storation  oi^  the  pojmlar  feature,  in  its  jniriiy  and  beauty — it  was  the  vin- 
dication of  the  rights  of  electors  from  the  usurpations  of  intrigue — it 
was  to  bring  the  government  nearer  to  the  will,  and  in  closer  subjec- 
tion to  the  power,  of  the  people.  The  tendency  of  Gen.  Jackson's  ad- 
ministration was  to  jmt  cloion,  and  not  reward,  encroachments  on  the 
popular  rights — to  check  the  purchase  of  office  by  the  sale  o]  the  popular 
franchises — to  stop  corruption  in  elections,  not  to  reward  and  give  it  ccun- 
tenance. 

Are  these  principles  those  which  lie  at  the  foundation  of  this  admin- 
istration ?  If  they  are,  let  us  trace  their  application  to  the  different 
parties  of  Jackson  men  in  this  place. 

I  might  speak,  in  the  first  place,  of  their  individual  character — of 
the  elementary  materials  of  which  the  two  parties  were  composed. 
People  at  a  distance  who  have  little  knowledge  of  the  individuals  at- 
tached to  either,  may  view  this  as  a  subject  of  little  importance,  or  one 
of  doubtful  controversy,  and  think  it  natural  that  each  may  claim  a 
preference,  and  with  equal  reason.  But  it  is  not  so,  and  the  writer  is 
willing  to  pledge  his  reputation  for  veracity  on  this  subject.  Let 
those  who  are  in  opposition  to  both  sections  of  the  party,  who  are 
neutral  to  their  question  of  discord,  decide  it.  Ask  the  most  respecta- 
ble members  of  the  Adams  party  here — ask,  in  Washington,  our  state 
delegation, — men  as  well  informed  of  the  public  sentiment,  as  any  in 
this  community,  and  whose  character  repels  every  suspicion  of  dis- 
honor. Will  they  not  say  that  the  Jackson  republican  party  was,  for 
its  numbers,  as  respectable  as  any  our  city  could  form — and  will  they 
not  say,  v»ith  equal  confidence,  that  the  Statesman  party,  generally, 
was  one  of  the  lowest  rabble  which  the  polluted  retreats  of  corruption 
could  send  forth  ^  Who  else,  except  the  parties  to  the  intrigue  for  of- 
fice which  I  have  alluded  to  before,  but  a  worthless  rabble,  insensi- 
ble to  the  value  of  reputation,  would  have  aided  men  in  the  pursuit  of 
the  corrupt  projects  Mhich  have  been  brought  to  light  ! 


73 

But  besides  the  difference  in  the  respectability  of  their  component 
elements,  in  what  did  they  differ  in  their  objects  and  principles  ?  The 
Statesman  party  proclaimed  that  no  Jackson  men  but  old  democrats, 
should  be  acknowledged,  by  the  administration,  as  its  friends.  JVe 
contended  that  all  the  friends  of  the  president  who  would  act  with  the 
national  republican  party,  should  act  together  on  equal  grounds,  and 
with  equal  rights.  They  raised  an  exclusive  party  banner — we  a 
Jackson  banner.  They  proscribed  a  part  of  the  friends  of  the  presi- 
dent,— we  proscribed  nobody.  They  were  for  war,  among  the  oppo- 
nents of  the  late  administration — we  were  for  peace  among  all  the 
friends  of  the  present.  Their  success  was  proscription  and  division — 
ours  was  union  and  harmony.  To  sanction  their  course  by  the  gov- 
ernment was  to  make  war  on  us — to  sanction  ours  was  to  hold  out  the 
olive  branch  of  peace  to  all  who  would  receive  it.  Which  of  these 
parties,  then,  placed  itself  on  the  basis  of  the  principles  of  the  presi- 
dent, and  on  the  pledged  policy  of  his  administration  }  This  question 
has  been  asked  before  ;  who  can  answer  it,  except  to  the  advantage  of 
the  Jackson  republican  party  ?  Many  writers  have  shown  a  disposition 
to  defend  the  Statesman  party — defend  them  here,  and  let  us  see  W'hat 
imposing  sophism  ingenuity  can  devise,  to  reconcile  facts  with  the  prin- 
ciples with  which  they  are  at  war. 

But  it  is  not  simply  that  the  Statesman  party  could  not  furnish  men 
whose  character,  in  trusts  of  dignity,  would  elevate  the  reputation  of 
the  government.  They  fell  below  the  humblest  standard^  of  qualifi- 
cations for  trusts  which  had  been  regarded  by  any  previous  adminis- 
tration. Never  before  were  offices  of  dignity  conferred  on  men  of  so 
low  a  standing.  Instead  of  elevating  the  character  of  the  party  above 
all  others,  they  degraded  it  below  all  example,  and  all  precedent.  In- 
stead of  augmenting  the  glory  of  an  administration,  they  shocked  the 
public  sentiment  to  a  degree  of  disgust  which  our  citizens  never  before 
felt  towards  people,  selected  by  the  constituted  authorities  of  the  coun- 
try, to  bring  home  the  acts  of  the  government  to  our  own  doors.  But 
the  evil  did  not  stop  here.  The  question  of  popular  rights  was  invol- 
ved, and  more  deeply  involved,  than  by  the  conduct  of  any  other  par- 
ty, or  men,  or  body  of  men  in  this  country.  What  has  occurred  else- 
where equal  to  it  ?  Who  ever  before  openly  wrested  from  the  people 
the  right  of  selecting  the  candidates  for  their  suffrages  ?  Where  else 
was  the  shameless  corrupt  character  of  the  object  so  openly  avowed  .'' 
If  the  influence  of  the  people  over  tjie  acts  of  the  government  was  to 
be  restored  in  its  purity,  where  are  the  claims  stronger  than  here  .'* 
Are  we,  in  Boston,  an  exception,  as  Jackson  men,  as  Americans — so 
that  usurpations  on  our  rights  are  not  to  be  resisted,  nay,  are  to  be  re- 
warded ?  Let  the  friends  of  the  Statesman  parly  show  any  thing,  if 
they  can,  in  the  conduct  of  Mr.  Clay  or  his  friends  equal  to  theirs 
— equally  deserving  of  tlie  indignation  of  the  country,  or  the  cor- 
recting hand  of  the  government.  I  challenge  (he  imion  for  a  par- 
allel ! 

On  what  principle,    then,  has   the   president  conferred  the  trusts  of 
the  government  on  that  degraded  parly  .''  I    call  for  an  answer  on  any 


73 

one  that  can  furnish  it.  Their  character  and  qualincations  could  not 
raise,  but  degraded  the  character  of  the  government.  They  did  not 
sustain  the  principle  of  Gen.  Jackson,  of  an  independence  of  party 
trammels,  but  opposed  it.  He  proclaimed  that  party  names  should  not 
be  the  basis  of  his  administration — they,  that  they  should.  He  was  for 
bursting  the  shackles — they,  for  fastening  them  more  firmly  on  his 
limbs.  They  insulted  the  chief  by  denouncing  his  principles,  while 
that  chief  himself  has  rewarded  them,  and  virtually  proscribed  the 
friends  by  whom  his  principles  were  professed  and  defended.  Gen. 
Jackson  proclaimed  that  tiie  corrupt  interference  with  the  rights  of  the 
people  should  be  checked  by  straining  the  influence  and  power  of  his 
administration  to  the  last  nerve, — and  yet  the  most  signal  objects  of  fa- 
vor— where  the  trusts  conferred  are  the  most  disproportioned  to  the 
character  and  services  of  the  men, — have  been  the  perpetrators  of  the 
greatest  outrage  on  the  rights  of  the  people,  which  has  ever  been 
practised  by  any  party,  or  any  man,  in  this  country.  Never,  I  repeat, 
and  I  challenge  refutation,  has  corruption  appeared,  under  our  form  of 
government,  in  so  revolting,  and  shameful,  and  disgraceful  a  form,  as 
in  the  Statesman  party  of  Boston. 

The  question  then  which  must  arise,  and  which  cannot  be  winked 
out  of  sight,  IS,  have  we  been  deceived  in  our  estimate  of  the  presi- 
dent's character,  or  has  he  been  deceived  in  the  character  of  his  ap- 
pointments }  It  is  reduced  to  this  alternative — there  is  no  other,  and 
there  is  no  escape  from  it.  Duff  Green,  and  the  Dufl-Green  party, 
assert,  that  the  president  was  not  deceived,  that  the  character  of  his 
Boston  officers  was  fully  known  to  him,  and  that  they  retain  his  confi- 
dence, in  spite  of  their  character,  and  their  subsequent  glaring  folly, 
as  fully  to  this  hour,  as  at  the  moment  of  their  appointment.  This  ive 
deny.  Duff  Green  says,  the  president  knowingly  preferred  low  men 
for  high  offices.  JVe  contend,  he  aims  to  elevate  the  standard  of  quali- 
fication, and  to  throw  credit  and  dignity  on  tl.e  whole  aggregate  body, 
executive  and  ministerial,  of  the  administration.  Duff  Green  says,  the 
president  acted  considerately  and  definitely,  on  a  full  knowledge  of  the 
merits  of  the  subject,  and  of  the  conduct  and  pretensions  of  the  men. 
We  say  the  president  has  been  deceived  by  diabolical  frauds,  which 
he  had  not,  in  the  hurry  and  pressure  of  the  moment,  the  means  and 
the  time  to  detect — that  the  subject  v.'as  not  settled  considerately  and 
definitely,  but  on  the  olher  hand,  only  provisionally,  until  he  could,  at 
more  leisure,  obtain  the  information  requisite  I'or  a  definitive  decision. 
Duff  Green  says,  the  president  assumes  the  conduct  of  the  Statesman 
party, — we  say  he  rejects  it — and  that  he  will  yet  throw  the  responsi- 
bility where  it  is  merit(  d.     Let  the  event  determine  which  is  right. 

If  I  am  pressed  with  an  objection,  why  the  president  should  have  de- 
cided on  a  subject  of  such  importance  without  adequate  information, — 
the  answer  is  undoubtedly,  tliat  greater  deliberation  would  have  been 
better  for  the  country,  and  better  for  the  party.  But  v.hose  fault  is  it, 
that  from  every  quarter  of  the  country,  the  party  rushed  to  Washing- 
ton before  even  his  administration  commenced — beset  him  in  every 
form,  by  night  and  day — pressed,  harsassed,  perplexed  and  amazed 
him  with  claims,  solicitations,  prayers  and  tears  ?    Whose   fault    is  it. 


74 

that  he  was  treated  with  so  little  delicacy  and  respect,  that  the  requisite 
time  for  a  knowledge  of  the  state  of  his  party  was  not  allowed  him  ? 
Thank  God,  as  it  has  been  said  before,  the  Jackson  republican  party 
of  Boston  had  no  hand  in  these  things — they  sent  no  committees  to 
intrude  on  his  retirement,  and  demand,  disgracefully,  their  pay — 
they  pressed  not  for  appointments,  but  only  for  delay  in  making 
theiiij  until  the  whole  merits  of  the  subject  could  be  known  to  the 
government. 

The  most  illiberal  opponent  of  the  president  must  agree  that  his  char- 
acter and  policy  are  not  yet  definitely  ascertained  by  these  provisional 
arrangements.      From  the  nature  of  things,    he  could  have   been  but 
little  acquainted  with  the  circumstances  of  each  portion    of  his  politi- 
cal triends  ;  and  being  more  heavily,    and   indelicately    assailed,  and 
pressed  upon  by  the  party,  than  any  of  his  predecessors,  he    made  the 
arrangement  which  seemed  to  him  the  best  in  his  power,  according  to 
the  actual  state  of  his  information  ;  but  he  made  it  pro  visional!  ij.     He 
has  filled  the  offices  for  the  time  being,    and   has    been,    and   still   is, 
seeking  the  information  requisite  for  his  definitive  decision.     This  is 
the  view /take  of  his  course.      Time  will  confirm  it,  or  show  its  falla- 
cy. Duff  Green  insists  upon  my  error,  but  I  cannot  take  Duff  Green's 
authority  tor  it.     To    give  the  president  information  is  the  object  of 
these  numbers.      If  it  be  true  that  he  does  not  seek  it,  the  main  object 
will  be  defeated  ;  but  they  will  not  then,  probably,  have   been  written 
in  vain.     There  is  a  correcting  and    redeeming   power   in  the   public 
opinion,  which  never  rejects  light,  and  will  not  be  appealed  to  in  vain. 
Private  communications  would  not   answer  an  equal   purpose,    for  the 
truth  of  those  could  not  be  tested,  and  there  would  be  opposing  repre- 
sentations to    contradict  them.     But  a  public  discussion  involves  a  tri- 
bunal of  judgment,  as  well  as  of  testimony.      It  presents  an  issue  which 
men  must  meet,  or  shrink  from.     Statements  made  here  require  to  be 
supported.       Public  assertions    can    be    denied    and  disproved,   m  hen 
they  are  not  true.     Character  and  reputation  are  at  stake  on  the  issue  ; 
and  the  cause  that  professes  merit,  is  required  to  show  its  'pretensions 
to  it.      In  one    word,  public  discussion  elicits  truth  and  exposes    false- 
hood, lays  bare  crime,  and  vindicates  innocence.    Let  the  guilty  shrink 
from  it — the  honest  man  has  nothing  to  fear. 

The  moment  is  now  arrived  when  Columbus  must  take  leave  of 
his  readers.  He  is  conscious  of  having  taxed  their  patience  too 
deeply,  and  yet,  he  is  well  aware,  there  is  much  overlooked  of 
equal  importance  to  the  community  and  the  government.  Others 
must  finish  the  work  which  Colunil)US  has  begun.  The  issue  is  na- 
tional ;  and  the  end,  the  ascendency  or  overthrow  of  the  Jackson 
party.  The  moment  of  redemption  is  not  yet  past  ;  but  another  step 
forward,  and  we  shall  be  placed  where  the  wisest  counsels  will  be 
useless,  and  the  grandest  efforts  unavailing.  May  the  Omnipotent 
Boing  who  directs  the  conduct  of  human  affairs  so  determine  it, 
that  whatever  the  event  may  be,  the  interests  and  honor  of  our  be- 
loved country  shall  be  sustained  and  promoted,  though  dynasties 
fall,  parties  be  shattered  and  divided,  and  the  strongest  political 
friendships  be  severed  for  ever.  COLUMBUS. 


(The  following  letters  from  Col.  Orne  to  Gen.  Duff  Green,  are  so  intimately  connected 
with  the  subjects  discussed  by  Columbus,  that  the  publishers  deemed  it  expedient  to  print 
them  in  connexion  with  those  numbers.) 


TO  GEN.  DUFF  GREEN. 

BosTox,  Sept.  18,   185^9. 

I  shall  make  no  apology  for  obtruding  my  private  affairs  on  the  pub- 
lic, although  I  am  sensible  that  it  is  an  act  which  usually  detracts,  in 
the  public  estimation,  from  the  delicacy  of  a  private  individual.  If  the 
circumstances  in  which  I  am  placed  do  not  speak  for  me,  I  stand,  I 
admit,  without  excuse.  Notwithstanding  my  total  silence,  in  regard 
to  you,  for  now  nearly  a  year,  you  have,  at  short  intervals,  during  that 
whole  period,  attacked  my  character,  as  well  as  my  conduct,  in  a  man- 
ner too  explicit  to  be  misapprehended,  in  the  columns  of  a  paper 
which  carries  your  calumnies  to  every  quarter  of  the  republic.  My 
motives  for  bearmg  so  lon^:,  calumnies  so  easily  refuted,  were  not,  you 
may  well  believe,  any  apprehension  of  your  resentment,  or  distrust  of 
my  ability  to  expose  your  falsehood.  Party  dissension  is  productive 
of  consequences  at  once  so  injurious  and  so  extensive,  that  verij  much 
should  be  endured  in  the  eflort  to  avert  it.  But  there  are  limits  to 
the  sacrifices  which  an  honest  man  can  be  called  on  to  make  ;  and 
these  will  be  soon  perceived  when  it  ceases  to  be  a  question  of  interest, 
and  becomes  one  of  honor.  You  have  reviled  me,  for  a  year,  Mr. 
Green,  and  I  have  endured  it,  in  silence.  I  will  endure  it  no  longer, 
and  proceed  to  prove  you,  what  I  have  long  known  you  to  be,  a  shame- 
less liar.  This  is  a  harsh  epithet,  I  acknowledge,  but  I  know  none 
other  in  the  Encrlish  lant^-uau^e  v/hich  can  furnish  an  adequate  substi- 
tute. 

In  your  paper  of  the  12th  inst.  among  many  other  remarks  about  me, 
there  is  the  following  paragraph : 

"It  is  urged  aaainst  those  who  have  been  appointed  to  office  at  Boston,  that  they  have 
written  for  tlie  Boston  Statesman  !!  And  this  objection  is  made  a  virtue  m  Col.  Orne, 
who,  not  content  with  havina  received  pavment  in  cash  from  the  real  editor  and  proprie- 
tor of  the  paper,  set  ui)  his  services  as  a  partizan  writer  in  that  print,  thus  demanding  to 
be  twice  paid  tor  the  same  services.'" 

If  this  statement  be  false,  Mr.  Green,  the  guilt  of  falsehood  must 
fasten  on  your  character,  for  you  cannot  allege  that  you  have  been  m- 
nocentlv  imposed  upon  by  the  fraud  of  your  mformers.  \ou  have 
been  repeatedly  warned  that  the  men,  in  Boston,  with  whom  you  have 
been  so  intimate,  were  utterinij  falsehoods  in  relation  to  the  Jacl^on 
republican  party  of  Boston,  and  particularly  in  relation  to  me.  lou 
were  told  that  there  was  another  side  to  the  story,  which  it  would  be 

10 


76 

necessary  for  you  to  hear,  before  you  could  learn  the  truth.  And  if 
you  are  really  deceived,  which  I  have  not  sufficient  charity  for  you  to 
suppose,  your  mistake  is  one  of  choice,  not  necessity,  and  because  you 
have  preferred  falsehood,  rather  than  truth.  Your  charge  is  concisely 
this — that  I  advocated,  as  a  writer  in  the  Boston  Statesman,  the  elec- 
tion of  Gen.  Jackson,  for  which  I  received  pay  from  the  proprietor  of 
that  paper,  and  for  which  also  I  asked  to  be  appointed  to  an  office. 
This  you  term  demanding  to  be  pai'd  twice  for  the  same  services. 

This  charge  forces  me,  Mr.  Green,  to  state  my  connexion  with  that 
newspaper. 

At  the  close  of  the  year  1820,  or  the  commencement  of  1821,  (and 
I  cannot,  at  this  moment,  state  the  date  for  the  want  of  a  file  of  the 
newspaper,)  the  Boston  Statesman  was  commenced  to  be  published. 
The  parties  to  the  publication  were  Benjamin  True  formerly  the  pub- 
lisher of  the  Yankee,  his  partner.  Equality  Weston,  Peter  N.  Green, 
(now  Nath'I.  Greene,  post  master  of  Boston)  and  myself  Mr.  Peter 
Green  had  just  before  published  a  little  paper  in  Haverhill,  in  this 
state,  in  support  of  the  republican  party,  and  previously,  I  believe  in 
the  same  place,  had  published  another  paper  in  support  of  the  federal 
party.  TVhen  myself,  with  others,  determined  to  publish  the  States- 
man, we  invited  Mr.  Green,  as  an  active  young  printer,  to  superin- 
tend the  mechanical  part  of  the  establishm.ent. 

The  editorial  department  was  to  be  exclusively  under  my  care,  but 
the  profits,  as  well  as  the  hazard,  were  to  belong  exclusively  to  the 
other  three  parties,  with  the  single  exception  that  I  shall  proceed  to 
state. 

For  editing  this  paper,  published  twice  a  week,  one  year,  the  other 
parties  were  to  pay  me  three  hundred  dollars,  (it  should  have  been  sta- 
ted §350)  and  assign  me  the  right  of  one  fourth  part  of  the  establish- 
ment, or  as  it  is  sometimes  termed,  the  good  will  of  the-  paper.  If  it 
were  well  edited,  it  was  supposed  its  reputation  would  be  worth  some- 
thing, and  he  on  v.hom  its  character  was  made  to  depend,  was  to  have 
an  interest  in  the  success.  This  year  terminated,  as  nearly  as  I  can 
recollect,  on  the  first  day  of  February,  1822,  after  which  I  received 
from  the  other  parties  their  note  for  the  three  hundred  dollars,  and 
nothing  else  whatever.  Hoiv  I  edited  the  paper,  its  files  may  show 
for  themselves,  but  I  may  be  permitted  to  say,  the  paper  had  as  much 
original  editorial  matter  as  any  semi-weekly  paper,  then,  or  before,  or 
since,  published  in  Boston.  That  it  had  some  reputation,  may  be  in- 
ferred from  the  fact  that  many  of  its  editorial  articles  were  republish- 
ed in  other  and  distant  quarters  of  the  union.  The  tone  of  its  edito- 
rial discussions  was  dignified  and  gentlemanly, —  as  unlike  that  of  the 
same  paper  afterwards,  under  other  editorial  management,  as  it  was 
to  the  present  tone  of  the  United  States  Telegraph. 

If  the  Statesman  afterwards  became,  as  it  was,  one  of  the  most  de- 
graded and  abusive  papers  published  in  the  country,  it  was  not  ray 
fault. 

Before  the  Statesman  was  published,  and  immediately  after  I  com- 
menced, in  Boston,  the  practice  of  the  law,  I  also  was   an  editor  and 


77 

part  proprietor  ofthe  Boston  Yankee,  for  thie  purchase  of  which  inter- 
est I  paid  the  proprietor,  Mr.  Thomas  Rowo,  six  hundred  dollars. — 
Judge  Ware,  of  Portland,  also  purchased  an  interest  in  the  Yankee,  for 
a  similar  sum,  and,  for  a  while,  we  edited  the  paper  jointly.  Judge 
Ware  afterwards  left  Boston,  and  conveyed  again  his  interest  to  Mr. 
Rowe,  when  the  sole  editorship  devolved  on  me.  For  these  services  I 
received  no  part  ofthe  proceeds  of  the  business,  but  was  paid  a  small 
annual  sum.  Messrs,  True  and  Weston  subsequently  purchased  Mr. 
Rowe's  interest,  ^nd  I  continued,  for  a  while,  to  edit  the  paper  on  the 
same  terms.  After  some  time,  not  being  able  to  agree  further  with 
these  gentlemen,  I  sold  them  my  interest,  and  left  altogether  the  es- 
tablishment. They  gave  me  their  note  of  hand  for  the  amount.  I  had 
ceased,  I  think,  for  some  years  my  connexion  with  the  Yankee,  when 
the  publication  of  the  Statesman  was  commenced. 

When  Mr.  Green  was  invited  to  take  a  part  in  the  Statesman,  it 
was  agreed  that  he  should  purchase  a  part  of  True  and  Weston's  es- 
tablishment ;  and  a  part  ofthe  purchase  money  was  appropriated  to 
take  up  the  note  which  I  held  against  them.  Mr.  Green,  however, 
not  having  much  capital,  asked  me  to  loan  him  the  amount,  and  I  loan- 
ed it  to  him.  When  I  ceased  to  be  editor  ofthe  Statesman,  True  and 
Green  gave  me  a  new  note  for  the  sum  so  loaned  to  Mr,  Peter  Green, 
to  which  was  also  added  the  sum  of  three  hundred  dollars  (8350)  due 
for  my  editorial  services  as  I  have  before  mentioned. 

It  may  be   necessary  to  inform  you,  Mr.  Duff  Green,  as  you  were 
not  perhaps    then  a    politician,  and,  it    may  be,  were  driving  cattle  in 
Missouri,  though  it  cannot  be  necessary  to  inform  the  public,  that  on 
the  1st  of  February,  1822,  the  contest  for  a  choice  of  a   successor  to 
Mr,  Monroe,  was  not  begun.     From  that  day  to  this,  during  the  whole 
presidential  contest  ofthe  last  seven  years,  I  have   received  from  Mr. 
Green,  or  from  any  body  else,  directly  or   indirectly,  no  money,  com- 
pensation, benefit  or  advantage,  in  any  possible  shape,  for  my  services, 
as  you  are  pleased  to  call  them,  or  for  my  political  writings,     I  wrote 
in  the  Boston  Statesman  during  the  whole  of  this  protracted  contest, 
probably  more    than   any  othe?'  many  without   fee,  compensation    or  re- 
ward— without  the  expectation,  hope,  or  possibility  of  fee,   compensa- 
tion or  reward.     My  labors  were  gratuitous,  unrewarded,  and  as  it  now 
appears  unthankful,  nay,  are  made  against  me  the  subject   of  reproach. 
But  the  truth  is  not  all  told  yet.     The  amount  due  me  from  the  pub- 
lishers ofthe  Statesman,  being  at  that  time  nearly  all  the  property  I  was 
ivortliy  and  for  a  part  of  which  I  was  in  debt,  was   continued  for  years, 
with  those  publishers  as  a  loan.     No  part  of  it   was    paid,  principal  or 
interest,  until  within,  if  I  remember  correctly,  one  or  tv/o  years.     And 
after  it  was  paid,  I  continued  to  endorse  True  and  Greene's^notes,  at  a 
bank,  for  at  least  eight  or  nine  hundred  dollars  at  a  time.     Nay,  more 
— up  to  the  very  moment  ofthe  establishment  of  the  Jackson  Repub- 
lican, I  was  an  endorser  for  True  and  Greene,  on  a  note  to  the  North 
Bank,  for  five  hundred  dollars,  until  I  withdrew  all  connexion  with  the 
Statesman,  and  placed  an  equal  amount  in  the  new  paper.     I  need  not 
inform  you  that  during  the  whole  presidential   contest  up  to  that   time. 


78 

this  sum  of  eight  or  nine  hundred  doliars  was  in  actual  jeopardy,  for  I 
knew  the  publishers  of  that  paper  were  insolvent,  and  would  never  be 
able  to  pay  me,  unless  the  contest  were  successful. 

But  the  whole  truth  is  not  told  yet.  During  the  same  period,  there 
have  been  times  in  Boston  when  money  could  not  be  commanded  on 
any  credit,  and  immense  sacrilices,  on  the  best  notes,  two  or  three  per 
cent,  a  month,  were  made  to  obtain  it.  At  such  times  Mr.  Greene  has 
resorted  to  me,  as  his  last  resource,  to  borrow  money  to  sustain  his  pa- 
per, and  I  have  loaned  it  to  him,  without  security,  and  without  interest 
one  or  two  hundred  dollars  at  a  time,  and  for  months  together,  out  of 
my  funds  in  the  bank  to  meet  the  current  expenses  of  my  family. 

I  thus  supported  that  paper  by  my  pen,  and  by  my  funds,  knowing 
that  if  the  contest  were  not  successful,  I  should  be  a  heavy  loser, — 
probably  not  much  short  of  one-thousand  dollars.  Yet  I  continued  the 
loan,  and  placedthe  whole  amount  cheerlully  on  the  result  of  the  con- 
test, and  a  large  part  of  it  up  to  the  very  moment  when  I  detected  a 
conspiracy  on  the  part  of  the  publisher  of  that  paper,  with  others  who 
governed  it,  to  effect  my  political  destruction.  It  has  been  stated  to 
me, — but  what  kind  of  heart  must  that  be  which  could  credit  it  ? — 
that  the  very  notes  I  endorsed  for  True  and  Greene,  nay  the  very 
notes  given  me  for  borrowed  money  when  it  could  be  obtained  in  no 
other  way,  were  taken  to  Washington,  and  shown  to  the  president,  in 
proof  of  my  being  paid  for  my  icrii'mgs  in  support  of  his  dection. 
Gratitude,  I  have  long  known,  is  not  a  common  quality  in  the  human 
character,  and  I  have  long  acted  in  the  belief,  that  it  is  never  to  be 
calculated  on  :  but  ingratitude  like  this,  is  not  human, — it  is  fiendish, 
— it  is  incredible.  The  heart  that  could  anticipate  it, — that  could  sus- 
pect it, —  must  be  as  black  as as Duff  Green's. 

I  must  reserve  for  another  paper,  some  remarks  on  other  parts  of 
your  remarkable  statement.  HENRY  ORNE. 

TO  GEN.  DUFF  GREEN,  NO.  II. 

Boston-,  Sept.  22,  18;29. 
The  following  paragraph    in  your  remarks  presents  another  asser- 
tion which  I  deem  it  proper  to  noiice. 

'*  After  it  was  pretty  well  ascertained  that  Gon.  Jackson  would  be  elected,  Mr.  Orne 
proposed  to  those  witli  whom  he  hal  for  a  short  time  acted,  that  tljey  should  unite  and 
nominate  him  fur  collector  to  succeed  Mr.  Dearborn." 

It  is  impossible  for  any  assertions  to  be  made,  regarding  any  body, 
or  on  any  subject,  more  false  than  this.  A  dispute  about  appoint- 
ments, or  even  a  conversation  about  them,  voluntarily,  while  an  elec- 
tion is  pending,  is  one  of  the  last  acts  of  folly  I  should  be  induced  to 
commit.  On  this  subject  I  can  appeal  without  fear  to  every  man  who 
has  been  in  my  confidence,  or  company,  during  the  whole  presidential 
contest.  In  regard  to  the  Crawford  campaign,  I  am  not  aware,  if  the 
event  had  been  fortunate,  that  there  was  a  person  in  the  common- 
wealth who  would  have  been  a  competitor  with  me  for  any  appoint- 


79 

ment  1  might  have  desired.  "Where  is  the  man  who  can  say  that  he 
ever  heard  me  name  the  subject  of  an  office  during  the  three  years  of 
that  contest  ?  And  the  very  ground  on  which  the  Statesman  party 
avowed  their  opposition  to  my  appointment  as  collector,  v,  as,  that  I 
would  not  talk  about  offices.  The  contidence  that  J  would  not  make 
bargains  with  men  for  subordinate  appointments — that  I  would  admin- 
ister the  duties  of  the  trust  independenily,  if  it  were  conferred  on  me, — 
was  the  leading  motive  of  the  conspiracy  to  destroy  me.  Until  the 
farce  of  the  legislative  convention  was  acted,  it  was  a  subject  never 
named  between  me  and  the  friends  of  Gen.  Jackson,  but  once.  Gen. 
King  of  Maine,  once  recommended,  (this  was  in  the  spring  of  1827,) 
to  the  Statesman  party,  to  present  my  name  to  Mr.  Adams  as  a  candi- 
date for  that  place,  in  the  belief  that  the  Jackson  majority  in  the  sen- 
ate would  not  sanction  Gen.  Dearborn's  re-appointment,  and  that  our 
wishes  might  possibly  be  successful.  I  absolutely  refused  to  sanction 
any  such  movement. 

After  the  farce  of  the  legislative  convention,  the  determination  to 
destroy  me  was  apparent,  and  I  resolved  to  unravel  the  motives  of  the 
intrigue.  By  the  merest  accident  I  was  informed  that  preparations 
for  making  Mr.  Henshaw  collector  had  been  long  made,  and  at  once 
saw  the  motive  of  the  hostility  to  me.  I  sought  conversation  with  the 
intriguers  to  find  out  their  plan,  and  became  at  length  fully  informed, 
after  some  sharp  altercation,  as  if  in  defiance,  of  their  disposition  of 
offices.  I  communicated  nothing  from  myself  more  than  was  necessa- 
ry to  bring  them  out.  It  is  not  to  our  apparent  enemies  that  we  re- 
sort to  place  confidence.  It  is  not  true  that  I  ever  asked,  before  the 
election,  any  man  in  Boston  whatever,  to  support  me  for  any  office 
under  this  administration.  Such  falsehood  has  been  asserted  here,  I 
know,  by  those  whose  slander  of  me  has  been  profusely  poured  into 
the  ears  of  the  government.  The  slanderer  may  be  willing  to  back 
one  falsehood  with  another,  but  I  am  ready  to  support  this  statement 
under  the  solemnity  of  an  oath.  I  never  begged  any  man's  or  any 
parly's  support  for  any  office,  and  if  I  ever  receive  an  appointment 
under  this,  or  under  any  other  administration,  it  shall  be  conferred  on 
me  freely,  without  solicitation  and  without  intrigue.  Your  next  para- 
graph, that  I  shall  notice,  is  of  a  similar  character. 

*'  After  the  election,  Gen.  Boyd  and  Col.  Orne  came  to  this  city,  and  we  venture  to 
affirm  that  no  one  of  all  the  office  hunters  who  have  visited  Washington,  has  heen  mure 
importunate." 

And  pray,  Mr.  Green,  what  do  you  know  of  the  fact  you  "  venture  to 
ciffirm  ?"  While  I  was  in  Washington  I  had  no  conversation  with  you, 
you  well  know.  You  cannot  have  forgotten  that  when  a  senator  of 
congress  introduced  you  to  me,  supposing  that  we  were  strangers,  I 
refused  to  notice  you,  and  was  constant  in  that  refusal  all  the  time  I 
was  in  Washington  !  How  then  do  you  know  that  I  was  importunate 
for  office  ?  Some  one  must  have  informed  you,  or  else  the  storv  is 
your  own  gratuitous  falsehood.  Produce  your  proof,  and  gainsay,  if 
you  can,  a  particle  of  my  denial.  During  the  two  ivccks  I  was  in  Wash- 
ington^ I  never  askcdy  directly  nor  indirectly ,  any  manh  ossistunccj  or  svp- 


80 

port  for  any  office  ichcitevcr.  I  made  no  application  for  any  office  what- 
ever. Who,  then,  could  have  told  you  such  a  falsehood,  and  what 
authority  do  you  require  before  you  "  venture  to  make  an  asscrtiun.'''* 

The  only  request  I  ever  made  for  any  appointment  under  this  ad- 
ministration, or  for  any  assistance  to  gain  one,  was  made  to  the  offi- 
cial organs  of  the  goverrmient,  in  transmitting  the  recommendations 
which  had  been  obtained  in  my  favor,  and  with  very  slight  agency  on 
my  part.  My  "  importunity''''  has  been  one  of  rather  a  remarkable 
character.  The  news  of  the  appointment  of  a  collector  reached  Bos- 
ton on  Saturday  evening.  The  Thursday  before,  being  Fast  day,  I 
transmitted  directly  to  the  president  himself  a  letter  withdrawing  the 
application  in  my  favor.  My  motive  it  concerns  you  little  to  know. 
You  will  undoubtedly  assert  that  I  had  well  ascertained,  previously, 
that  I  could  not  be  successful.  I  was,  indeed,  disgusted  with  the 
malice  and  slander  which  had  been  so  extensively  brought  to  bear 
against  me,  and  in  which  you  took  so  responsible  and  infamous  a  part. 
I  apprehend  that  I  was  to  be  made  a  victim,  and  reconciled  myself  to 
my  fate.  But  so  far  from  knowing  that  an  adverse  appointment  had 
been  made,  all  our  information  from  Washington,  led  us  to  believe 
that  the  appointment  would  have  been  deferred  much  longer.  This 
letter  of  withdrawal  was  forwarded  to  the  president  on  the  9th  of 
April — on  the  11th,  the  news  reached  here,  and  astonished  us  be- 
yond measure,  that  this  appointment  had  been  given  to  Mr.  Henshaw. 
You  may  judge  what  reason  I  had  to  expect  this  event,  at  the  time, 
from  the  following  extract  of  a  letter  from  Andrew  J.  Donelson,  Esq. 
the  private  secretary  of  the  president.  As  it  w^as  in  some  measure 
official,  not  confidential,  and  its  own  nature  requires  no  secrecy,  I 
hope  I  violate  no  delicacy  in  communicating  it. 

Washington,  April  3d,  1829. 
"  I  also  add  the  expressions  of  the  hope  that  you  will  not  suffer  the   statement  of  others 
to  interrupt  the  addresses  to  the  proper  department  of  any  recommendations,  or  testimoni- 
als, which  you  may  have  in  your  possession.      The  appointments  to  the  customs  are  not 
Jixed  upon,  nor  are  they  jiledoed  to  any." 

So  far  from  being  importunate  at  W'ashington,  I  never  went  there 
with  a  view  of  applying:  for  any  appoiniment.  I  had  been  repeatedly 
informed  that  ]\lr.  Nath'I.  Greene  was  then,  and  had  been  all  winter, 
utterinor  his  slanders  against  me.  My  sole  object  in  going  was  to 
hear  and  repel  any  falsehood  he  might  allege.  I  staid  in  Washington 
lon^'  enough  to  see  most  of  the  leading  men  of  the  Jackson  party  ;  but 
these  were  above  JMr.  Nath'l.  Greene's  reach.  I  was  satisfied  that 
their  minds  had  not  been  prejudiced,  and  came  away.  For  the  opini- 
ons of  such  men  as  you  and  your  associates,  I  did  not  care,  and  Mr. 
Nath'l.  Greene  was  welcome  to  utter  among  you  any  falsehoods  he 
thouirht  proper.  I  was  strongly  urged,  by  an  intimate  friend  of  the 
president,  to  remain  until  after  the  4ih  of  March  :  he  was  aware  I  had 
enemies,  and  insisted  that  I  should  remain  to  meet  them,  i  feared 
them  too  litlkj  and  despised  them  too  much.  I  did  not  regard  them 
cnouo-h  to  encounter  a  scene  from  which  every  feeling  of  delicacy  re- 
volted.    I  thank  God,  still,  that  I   had   no   part   in   that  scene    which 


81 

covers,  when  it  is  recalled  to  mind,  every  American  cheek  with  a  blush. 
The  throng  that  pressed  on  the  president  before  lie  was  fairly  in  office, 
soliciting  rewards  in  a  manner  so  destitute  of  decency,  and  of  respect 
for  his  character  and  otlice,  is,  with  your  8th  of  January  printer's  din- 
ner, among  the  most  disgraceful  reproaches  to  the  character  of  our 
countrymen.  "  Before  I  would  behold  such  another  4th  of  March,'' 
said  a  faitliful,  but  indignant  friend  of  the  president,  "1  would  see  the 
whole  district  of  Columbia  blown  to  heaven,  with  all  that  it  contained." 
Gen.  Boyd  indeed  remained  there.  He  had  public  claims  on  his 
country  which  gave  a  sanction  to  his  presence.  He  had  claims  which 
every  respectable  man  in  this  quarter  has  admitted  for  years.  But  on 
party  grounds,  not  a  member  of  the  Jackson  republican  party  was  present^ 
and  I  thanked  God  for  it.  Even  the  twenty  brazen  representatives  of 
the  Statesman  party,  one  would  think,  might  have  felt  enough  regard 
for  decency  to  retire,  when  they  had  you  and  your  host  to  act  for  them. 
You  speak  of  me  "  as  objecting  to  the  appointment  of  editors."  I 
never  published  a  syllable  upon  that  subject.     You  further  remark. 

"  The  Intelligencer  asserts  that  these  gentlemen  ((he  respectable  friends  of  the  president 
in  this  quarter)  are  shocked  at  the  cruel  extent  to  which  the  power  of  removal  has  been 
carried.  Was  Gen.  Boyd  shocked  at  the  removal  of  his  predecessor  ?  If  so,  why  did  he 
importune  the  president  to  make  the  removal  ]  Why  did  he  accept  the  office  when  made 
vacant  1  Was  Col.  Orne  shocked  at  the  removal  of  Messrs.  (Mr.)  Dearborn  or  Hill  1  If 
so  why  did  he  solicit  both  or  either  of  those  offices,  before  the  removals  were  made." 

You  either  misunderstand,  Mr.  Green,  or  else  you  willingly  mis- 
state the  argument.  The  objection  to  the  numerous  appointments  of 
printers,  which  has  been  made,  not  by  me,  but  very  extensively  by  the 
friends  of  the  president,  all  over  the  country,  is  not  because  editors  or 
printers  have  been  appointed  ;  but  because  men  have  been,  as  it  is 
alleged,  for  no  other  reason  than  because  they  were  printers.  Let  can- 
didates be  selected  for  their  character,  conduct,  and  qualifications — let 
those  be  such  as  to  elevate  the  character  of  the  government  which  ap- 
points them,  and  the  offices  they  fill,  and  there  will  be  no  expression 
of  mortification  or  regret.  The  professions  of  men  ought  not  to  enter 
into  the  consideration  of  their  qualifications  for  a  public  trust.  It  is  no 
objection  to  a  man  that  he  was  an  editor,  but  it  is  nothing  in  his  favor. 
He  should  not  be  selected  merely  as  an  editor,  nor  rejected  on  that 
account.  Printers,  as  a  body,  should  not  be  a  peculiarly  favored  class — • 
nay,  the  proprietors  of  presses,  the  publishers  by  profession,  should 
be  rather  viewed  with  strictness  and  jealousy,  for  the  preservation  of 
the  purity  of  the  press,  than  as  objects  of  signal  bounty  on  the  success 
of  their  candidate.  It  is  not  merely  because  Isaac  Hill,  and  Nathaniel 
Greene,  are  printers,  but  because  of  their  especial  want  of  suitable 
characters  and  qufilifications  for  the  offices  they  hold, — because  they 
are  nothing  but  printers,  or  editors,  and  that  of  a  degraded  class — that 
the  public  sentiment  has  been  shocked  by  their  appointment. 

You  well  know,  Mr.  Green,  that  I  am  by  profession  neither  a  prin- 
ter nor  an  editor,  but  engaged  in  the  practice  and  in  the  administration 
of  the  law.  If  I  am  a  candidate  for  a  public  trust,  at  all,  it  is  neither 
as  an  editor  nor  a  writer.     I  readilv  as:ree  with  vou  that  these  afford 


82 

me  no  claim,  although  the  services  in  that  line  were  gratuitous  indeed 
Mr.  Green  ;  but  wh-  tlier  a  suitable  candidate,  cr  not,  depends  on  con- 
siderations of  character.  If  this  places  me  below,  or  on  a  level,  with 
those  who  have  contrived  to  obtain  the  oflices  in  this  place,  I  readily 
admit  that  my  pretensions  have  been  very  properly  rejected.  But 
here  again  you  much  mistake  the  matter.  That  we  are  in  trouble,  it 
is  not  because  we  have  not  obtained  appointments,  but  that,  unfit  peo- 
ple have.  We  could  have  well  done  without  offices,  but  not  with  bad 
appointments.  Let  the  men  selected  be  suitable  to  the  respectability 
and  standing  of  the  party — let  them  elevate  the  character  of  the  gov- 
ernment, and  reflect  honor  on  the  institutions  of  the  country,  and  we 
shall  be  well  contented.  Let  exalted  trusts  not  be  confided  to  tho.se 
whose  avowed  object  was  discord  and  division  in  the  party — on  those 
who  had  published  their  determination  to  proscribe  a  part  of  the  friends 
of  the  administration,  and  you  will  find  us  not  quite  so  selfish  and  im- 
poituiiate  as  you  imagine. 

You  insist  upon  it  that  those  who  have  applied  for  appointments 
complain,  with  an  ill  grace,  that  the  incumbents  have  been  removed. 
If  such  there  be,  they  are  guilty  of  shameful  selfishness  and  inconsis- 
tency, and  you  cannot  treat  them  with  too  much  severitv.  But  here 
you  mistake  the  fact.  The  people  of  Boston  do  not  complain  that  Gen. 
Dearborn,  or  Dr.  Hill,  orlVJaj.  Melville,  was  removed.  All  these  gen- 
tlemen, doubtless,  had  friends  who  would  have  been  happy  to  see  them 
retained.  Some  of  them,  certainly,  are  very  respectable  men,  and 
discharged  their  duties  in  a  very  creditable  manner;  and  of  these, 
the  people  made  no  complaint.  Still  they  did  not  suppose  that  they 
would,  or  ought  to  be,  continued  in  office.  There  are  certain  trusts  of 
an  elevated  character  under  our  government,  which  ought  not  to  be 
perpetual,  in  the  hands  of  any  families,  or  of  any  men.  Rotation  is  a 
sound,  practical,  republican  principle,  under  our  form  of  government, 
and  for  which  the  people  have  frequently  avowed  a  strong  predilection. 
The  collectorship,  naval  office,  and  post-office,  had  been  long  enough 
in  the  hands  of  the  late  incumbents,  two  of  whom  were  known  to  be 
very  rich,  and  if  all  of  them  were  not,  it  was  their  own  fault.  The  peo- 
ple expected  a  change,  and  in  regard  to  the  post  otTice,  I  believe,  al- 
most universally  desired  it.  In  regard  to  the  collectorship  also,  al- 
though well  satisfied  v.ith  the  ofricial  conduct  of  the  collector,  they 
thought  the  office  had  been  long  enough  in  the  hands  of  Gen.  Dear--* 
born,  and  in  those  of  his  family.  The  reason  was  still  more  forcible 
in  the  case  of  Maj.  Melville,  who  had  been  still  longer  in  office,  had 
accumulated,  it  was  supposed,  a  very  large  fortune  ;  and  whose  repose, 
rather  than  whose  services,  commanded  the  public  sympathies.  But 
if  this  had  been  otherwise,  and  stronger  reasons  were  needed  for  his 
removal,  they  could,  I  am  satisfied,  have  been  found.  If  the  public 
sentiment  has  been  hurt  by  any  traiisactitms  connected  with  these  men, 
it  was  rather  at  the  time  and  manner,  than  by  the  fact,  of  their  removal. 
But  the  great  cause  of  dissatisfaction  was  not  their  removal^  but  the 
appointment  of/jt'o  of  their  swcccs/ors. 

There  have  been,  however,  removals  here,  which  have  given  a  deep 
shock  to  the  p\d)lic  sentiment.     Not   those  made  by  the  government, 


82 

but  by  the  officers  whom  the  government  appointed.  Rotation  is  a 
good  principle  applied  to  leading  political  trusts  ;  but  when  brought  to 
bear  on  humble  occupations — on  experienced  services,  not  rewarded, 
but  barely  sustained — on  trusts  to  which  experience  is  requisite,  but 
for  which  the  compensation  is  something  less  than  an  equivalent — on 
men  who  had  given  up  all  other  pursuits,  and  embraced  these  for  a 
livelihood,  with  no  reason  to  anticipate  a  removal  while  their  conduct 
merited  the  public  confidence — when  rotation  is  applied  to  these  offi- 
ces, and  is  made  to  carry  ruin  and  dismay  into  the  bosoms  of  private 
families — making  wretched  sufferers  of  dependent  wives,  and  helpless 
children — then  it  is  that  removals  are  complained  of — that  public  sen- 
timent is  shocked — that  business  men ^  not  politicians,  unite  to  interfere 
and  petition  for  redress — and  then  it  is  that  rotation  emits  a  bad  odor, 
and  becomes  a  subject  of  reproach.  It  is  this  kind  of  removals,  when 
subordinate  agents  are  made  the  victims  of  petty  tyrants  in  power,  that 
agitates  the  public  sentiment,  and  kindless  indignation.  It  is  that  kind 
of  removals  which  the  president  has  stopped,  and  implicitly  censured,  of 
which  our  people  complain,  and  for  his  prompt  interference  in  which, 
the  president  has  gained,  in  this  quarter,  a  good  deal  oi  grateful  credit. 
His  views  of  rotation  appear  to  be  such  as  I  have  stated — such  as 
were  well  known  to  be  the  views  of  the  Crawford  party  in  the  previ- 
ous contest — such  as  I  knoiv  were  the  views  of  the  illustrious  leader  of 
that  party  himself  These  subordinate  agents  should  be  removed  only 
for  cause — this  appears  to  be  the  sentiment  of  the  government,  and  it  is, 
most  assuredly  the  sentiment  of  our  people. 

I  have  thus,  General  Green,  met,  I  believe,  every  charge  you  have 
advanced  against  my  character — I  have  told  you  the  truth,  which  neither 
you  nor  any  other  man  can  controvert.  And  if  this  be  the  truth,  are  you 
not  ashamed  of  the  calumnies  you  have  circulated  against  me  ?  Is 
there  one  particle  of  honesty  in  your  character — have  you  the  slightest 
regard  for  truth,  or  individual  justice  ? — If  you  answer  me  yes,  then  I 
exhort  you  to  fall  on  your  knees,  and  ask  my  forgiveness.  Let  not 
shame  keep  down  your  penitence,  for  believe  me,  in  your  present  con- 
dition, contrition  is  infinitely  more  becoming  in  you  than  obstinacy. 
Dare,  for  a  single  moment,  to  be  an  honest  man,  and  you  will  per- 
ceive such  an  elevation  in  your  teeiings  as  will  make  you  regret  that 
you  never  tried  it  before.  You  have  endeavored  to  injure  me,  but  I 
trust,  with  the  blessing  of  the  God  of  justice,  that  the  endeavor  will  re- 
dound, yet,  to  my  benefit.  Avow  your  error, — be  penitent — promise 
reformation,  and  I  will  forgive  you.  I  will  exercise  all  the  charity 
towards  you  that  a  christian  spirit  can  impart  ;  and  though  there  are 
points  in  your  character  which  must  forever  repel  my  respect,  your 
offences,  and  attempted  injuries,  shall  be  forgiven  and  forgotten. 

I  now  take  my  leave  of  you  Gen.  Green,  I  hope  forever.  There  are 
points  regarding  your  conduct,  on  which  I  could  speak  at  length  ;  but 
"  Columbus''''  has  promised  to  do  you  justice,  and  in  his  hands  I  leave 
you.     If  I  am  not  deceived,  yoiir  turn  ivill  come  soon. 

HENRY  ORNE. 


We  have  thought  proper  to  give  in  connexion  with  the  Letters  of  Columbus,  the  piece 
signed  Anti-Janus,  which,  by  commencing  a  violent  and  abusive  attack  on  some  of  the 
friends  of  this  administration,  drew  out  Columbus  in  reply.  The  writer  is  not  known,  but 
there  is  little  doubt  it  was  gotten  up  under  the  influence  of  our  Custom  house,  and  other 
national  officers  here.  It  was  originally  published  in  the  New  Hampshire  Patriot,  but 
soon  reprinted  in  many  of  the  Duff  Green  papers. 


What  constitutes  "  a  concealed  enemy  of  the  Administration."] — Boston  Evening 
Bulletin. 

The  above  question  being  addressed,  not  to  an  individual,  but  to  the  public  generally, 
may  I  presume,  be  answered  by  any  member  of  the  community  who  chooses  to  take  the 
trouble.  By  different  persons,  different  answers  would  doubtless  be  given  ;  and  perhaps 
the  true  definition  may  only  be  obtained  by  collating  and  examining  the  varying  opinions 
which  may  result  from  the  exercise  of  various  minds  on  this  delicate  subject.  With  your 
leave  Mr.  Editor,  I  will  contribute  my  mite  in  the  way  of  elucidation,  by  delineating  such 
a  character  as  I  should  suppose  might  properly  be  denominated  "  a  concealed  enemy  of  the 
administration.'!  Please  remember  the  character  is  but  a  "  fancy  sketch,"  and  is  to  be  so 
considered,  however,  much  it  may  resemble  that  of  any  actual  living  demagogue. 

Col.  Christopher  Crafty  is  a  man  who  stands  six  feet  in  his  stockings,  with  a  figure  and 
eye  which  would  have  been  very  fine  and  expressive  were  not  tlie  beauty  of  the  one  de- 
stroyed by  the  habitual  gastronomic  indulgence  which  has  stamped  sensualist,  in  indelible 
characters,  on  the  expression  of  the  other.  The  intimate  connexion  between  matter  and 
mind,  and  their  mutual  dependence,  are  admirably  displayed  in  Col.  Crafty,  and  render 
him  an  excellent  subject  for  the  experiments  of  a  phrenological  professor.  Like  his  out- 
ward form,  his  mind  was  originally  of  fair  dimensions  and  constructed  with  all  usual  capa- 
bilities for  receiving  and  reflecting  good  or  evil  impressions.  And  now,  when  his  despoil- 
ed head  gives  its  unbidden  testimony  that  the  meridian  of  life  has  arrived,  and  teaches  us 
to  look  for  the  permanent  unchangeable  impress  of  time  upon  the  heart  and  mind,  let  us 
lift  the  curtain  and  read.  What  is  written  in  that  heart  1  Alas,  but  one  word — and  that 
word  traced  with  icicles,  freezing  the  current  of  every  noble,  every  generous  impulse — 
that  word  is  selfishness.  What  on  that  mind,  committed  to  his  keeping  by  the  great 
source  of  all  purity,  fair  and  while  and  pure  1  How  has  it  been  kept  1  What  characters 
are  there,  and  by  whom  traced  1 — Cunning,  Treachery,  and  Falsehood  stand  out  in  bold 
relief,  proclaiming  that  selfishness  and  sensuality  have  been  but  too  busy  and  too 
successful  in  marring  what  God  created  in  the  image  of  his  own  beauty 

Such  we  will  suppose  to  be  a  correct  delineation  of  the  mental,  moral  and  physical  char- 
acteristics of  Col.  Crafty.  We  will  now  trace  the  course  it  might  be  supposed  such  a  man 
would  pursue  as  a  politician.  During  three  years  of  the  last  Presidential  contest,  he  adopt- 
ed the  non-committal  system.  He  could  not  decide  what  course  to  take — for  he  knew  not 
which  candidate  would  succeed.  He  felt  that  the  people  were  for  Jackson,  but  he  could 
not  believe  the  politicians  would  suffer  him  to  be  elected.  While  Gov.  Clinton  lived,  it 
was  possible  thai  he  might  be  taken  up,  and  Jackson  abandoned.  Gov.  Clinton  died. — 
Still  Mr.  Crawford  was  alive,  and  might  be  brought  forward  and  elected  after  Adams  and 
Jackson  had  demolished  each  other.  Under  these  circumstances,  in  his  profound  wisdom, 
he  determined  to  deny  in  the  most  public  manner,  that  he  took  any  part  in  the  contest — 
while  at  the  same  time  he  privately  kept  up  an  active  communication  with  the  friends  of 
each  candidate,  professing,  in  the  secresy  of  confidential  correspondence,  to  be  friendly  to 
eaeh.  At  length  the  election  of  Mr.  Stevenson  as  Speaker  of  the  House  took  place,  and 
other  thick  comiiiij  indications  warned  this  mo.st  cautious  of  fencemen  that  it  was  time  to 


84 

jump  off.  He  now  felt  that  his  only  chance  was  to  steal  or  force  himself  into  the  front  rank 
of  those  who  had  fought  the  good  fight  of  Jackson  and  reform — and  both  of  these  modes  he 
attempted.  But  his  conduct  during  the  time  when  his  assistance  was  needed  and  would 
have  been  welcomed,  and  the  base  and  selfish  calculations  which  had  induced  that  con- 
duct, caused  him  to  bo  viewed  every  where  with  coldness  and  distrust.  And  a  conscious- 
ness that  he  had  justly  forfeited  the  confidence  and  respect  of  those  who  had  in  bye-gone 
days  been  his  best  friends,  induced  him  to  look  about  for  new  friends  and  a  new  party. — 
Finding  it  impossible  to  obtain  the  countenance  of  any  existing  party,  he  was  obliged  to 
resort  to  the  forlorn  hope  of  manufacturing  a  new  one.  The  attempt  was  arduous,  the  ma- 
terials scarce,  and  small  the  confidence  in  this  would-be  leader.  By  dint,  however,  of 
persevering  flattery,  falsehood  and  hypocrisy,  he  persuaded  two  honest,  well-meaning,  but 
somewhat  disappointed  politicians  of  different  sects,  to  countenance  his  plans,  and  hoist  a 
banner  under  which  were  to  be  gathered  the  unprincipled  of  all  parties.  And  a  pretty 
business  they  made  of  the  co-partnership.  One  party  to  the  compact  was  to  furnish  cun- 
ning— another,  a  sufficient  quantity  of  good  society  federalism — the  third,  a  sprinkling  of 
democracy  and  the  balance  in  cash.  Thus,  like  Macbeth's  witches,  and  for  a  purpose  not 
far  differing  from  the  Thane  of  Cawdor's  he  filled  the  cauldron  with 

"  Adder's  fork  and  blind-worm's  sting, 

*'  Lizard's  leg  and  owlet's  wing."  •^- 

The  new  firm  hoisted  their  parti-colored  flag  and  beat  up  for  recruits.  Many  were  called 
but  few  came — and  those  who  did  come  were  the  strangest  mixture  of  the  odds  and  ends  of 
all  parties  that  eyes  ever  beheld.  Motley  was  the  only  wear.  Falstaff  would  never  have 
marched  through  Coventry  with  such  soldiers.  But  such  as  they  were,  they  were  all  that 
could  be  obtained — and  with  this  apology  for  a  party  the  fortunes  of  the  prime  mover  were 
to  be  made  or  marred.      They  were  marred. 

Retiring  from  the  presence,  disappointed,  mortified,  discredited — conscious  only  of  utter 
and  deserved  failure — another  passion  enters  into  his  soul  and  obtains  the  mastery  there. 
That  passion  is  revenge.  He  lives,  moves,  breathes,  but  for  one  fell  purpose — revenge. 
Revenge  on  all — on  Gen.  Jackson,  whom  in  his  private,  familiar  conversation  he  abuses  in 
the  foulest  manner — on  his  constitutional  advisers — and  on  the  humble  individuals  whose 
only  crime  consists  in  having  been  preferred  to  him.  How  to  accomplish  this,  is  his  thought 
by  day  and  his  dream  by  night.  His  perverted  talents,  his  fiendish  cunning,  and  his  ex- 
ceeding falsehood,  have  all  been  put  in  requisition — the  plan  of  his  operations  has  been  de- 
termined and  is  now  developing.  It  is  such  a  plan  as  might  have  been  expeeted  from  such 
a  heart,  such  a  mind,  such  passions.  He  affects,  God  knows  how  falsely,  to  be  a  friend  and 
supporter  of  the  President  and  his  administration — this,  that  he  may  acquire  power  to  ac- 
complish the  mischief  he  meditates.  He  affects  great  solicitude  for  the  consequences  of 
certain  appointments  in  this  quarter — first  insinuates  that  they  are  injudicious,  and  next 
proceeds  to  denounce  them.  And  all  this,  as  he  pretends,  from  pure  love  to  the  adminstra- 
tion,  and  a  sincere  desire  to  uphold  and  support  it.  Does  a  nevvly  appointed  officer  exert 
his  faculties  to  the  utmost  stretch,  rising  early  and  retiring  late,  that  the  duties  of  his  office 
may  be  so  discharged  as  to  preclude  all  cavil  at  his  appointment  and  extort  praise  from 
those  who  would  more  willingly  bestow  censure — straightway  this  boding  owl  insinuates  that 
that  approbation  is  purchased  by  base  means,  and  that  the  undivided  voice  of  a  whole  com- 
munity is  a  false  testimony  induced  by  bribery.  Does  a  newly  appointed,  active  and  faith- 
ful officer  deem  it  proper  to  displace  a  clerk  for  reasons  satisfactory  to  himself  and  the  gov- 
ernment— the  friends  of  that  clerk  are  visited  by  this  immaculate  supporter  of  the  admin- 
istration— they  are  falsely  assured  that  government  does  not  approve  and  will  not  sustain 
the  course  of  its  officer — the  embprs  of  their  discontent  are  artfully  fanned — their  pas- 
sions are  stimulated — they  are  excited  to  call  meetings  for  the  purpose  of  denouncing  the 
representative  of  the  government — and  promised  the  co-operation  of  himself,  his  relatives 
and  friends,  togeiiier  with  the  aid  of  an  unprincipled,  purchased  press,  of  which  he  has  ob- 
tained the  controul  much  in  the  same  manner  as  the  monkey  got  possession  of  the  roasted 
chesnuts.  Suppose  a  person  possessing  such  cliaracteristics  and  pursuing  such  a  course — 
might  he  not,  JNIr.  Editor,  be  properly  termed  "  a  concealed  enemy  of  the  Administra- 
tion V  ANTI-JA^US. 


X 


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